Markets may see negative opening tracking pessimistic cues from Asian peers

Indian stock markets may drift lower at the opening bell as cues from Asian peers are negative. The SGX Nifty is trading down by 20 points at 10,280 levels, indicating dull start to the day.  
  
Asian markets are trading with a negative bias at the start of the week following negative cues from the Wall Street on Friday. China’s Shanghai Composite has plunged 2.51 per cent and Hong Kong’s stock market has shed 0.56 per cent, while the Japanese market remains closed for a public holiday.  
  
Back home, markets were in for a big surprise on Friday as the RBI kept status quo on key rates, but changed its stance from 'neutral' to 'calibrated tightening'. This resulted in a sharp sell-off in the last leg of trading as indices slipped below their crucial marks of 10,350 (Nifty) and 34,400 (BSE Sensex) and extended their downfall for the third straight day. The broader indices also witnessed sell-offs, with both the Nifty Mid-cap and Small-cap losing 2.61 and 2.44 per cent, respectively. With respect to sectoral performance, apart from Nifty IT, all other sectors ended in the red, with the PSU Bank index leading the fall, followed by Nifty Media, Nifty Metal and Nifty Auto.   
  
The final trading session of the week saw the US stocks trading considerably lower in the morning as treasury yields extended a recent upward move following the release of the monthly jobs report. However, the stocks regained some ground in the end . At the close of the session, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 180 points, technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index tumbled 91 points and the S&P 500 was down 16 points. A host of important economic reports were released on Friday, including rise in non-farm payrolls by 134,000 jobs in September compared to the Bloomberg forecast of an increase of  185,000, the unemployment rate fell to 3.7 per cent in September, a 48-year low from 3.9 per cent in August, and the commerce department said that the trade deficit widened to $53.2 billion in August, while economists had expected the trade deficit to widen to 53.5 billion.  
  
Extending their southward journey, the European markets ended Friday’s session in the negative terrain as bond yields continued to rise, Italy’s budget battle and UK Brexit uncertainty weighed on investor sentiments. The DAX of Germany declined 1.08 per cent, the CAC of France decreased 0.95 per cent and the UK’s FTSE 100 dropped 1.35 per cent.