Market set for gap-down opening today!

On Thursday, Indian markets are set for a negative start as SGX Nifty indicates a gap-down opening. At the time of writing, SGX Nifty was down by 101 point at 9,154 level. The main cause of concern in India is that the total number of Coronavirus cases has crossed 50,000 mark and the death toll is reported to be around 1,785. On the earnings front, HCL Tech, Gillette, RBL Bank is some of the prominent names to report their earnings for the quarter ended March 2020.

Markets in Asia were trading with modest losses on Thursday, following mixed close on Wall Street. Japan’s Nikkei 225, which resumed trading after a three-day holiday is down by 0.16 per cent, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng has shed 0.52 per cent and China’s Shanghai Composite has lost 0.36 per cent.

The key benchmark indices swung both ways before ending the session with decent gains. Nifty rose 0.71 per cent and BSE Sensex gained 0.74 per cent. Broader markets performed in-line with the frontline indices with Nifty Mid-cap and Small-cap adding 0.64 and 0.67 per cent, respectively. Talking about the sectoral performance, barring Nifty FMCG and Nifty PSU Bank, all other indices ended in green with Nifty Financial Services, Nifty Private Bank and Nifty Bank being the top gainers.

US stocks closed mixed on Wednesday after a choppy day of trading. As tensions with China are on the rise and with economic data adding fuel to the fire, ADP non-farm employment showed a staggering 20 million job losses in US. At the close, the tech-heavy Nasdaq was the only one of Wall Street’ major indices to close in green as it gained 0.5 per cent, while Dow and S&P 500 slipped 0.9 and 0.7 per cent, respectively. European indices too ended mostly lower with Germany’s DAX and France’s CAC 40 losing over one per cent each. On the flipside, UK FTSE 100 ended with modest gains.