Flat start for markets

Going by the early indication of SGX Nifty, the markets are set to witness a flat start. The New Year began with some cheerful news for the economy, with gross GST collection for December coming in at Rs 1.03 lakh crore. Also, this is the second straight month when the GST mop-up has crossed the 1 lakh crore mark. Meanwhile, the just trickled in auto sales figures remained disappointing, as passenger vehicle sales continued their downtrend in December. However, Maruti and M&M reported positive numbers. Market participants will also look forward to the release of Markit manufacturing PMI for December, which will be released later in the day. At the time of writing this piece, SGX Nifty was up by 6 points, trading at 12,251 level.

A majority of the Asian markets were trending up on Thursday. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was up by 0.93 per cent and China’s Shanghai Composite added 0.81 per cent. The sentiment was boosted by the US President Donald Trump’s announcement that the phase one trade deal between the world’s two largest economies, the US and China, will be signed on January 15.

Back home, the markets kick started the New Year 2020 on a buoyant note but ended the day mildly up, as trading sentiments remained subdued. BSE Sensex settled with gains of 0.13 per cent and Nifty ended its run with gains of 0.12 per cent. The broader markets were seen outperforming the major indices, with Nifty Midcap and Smallcap being up by 0.18 and 0.67 per cent, respectively. On the sectoral front, the action was mixed and mostly muted. Nifty IT and Nifty FMCG were top gainers while Nifty Media and Nifty Auto were top losers.

The US markets were closed on New Year’s Day.