Markets to open positive on firm Asian cues
After a severe crash in the last trading session, the Indian benchmark indices will expect a recovery on Friday as positive sentiments are likely to be supported by positive cues from Asian peers and measures announced by the Finance Minister to make liquidity available. The government announced that the public sector banks will hold public meetings with borrowers for distributing loans in 400 districts of the country to boost demand ahead of the festive season. Further, she mentioned that the PSBs won’t declare stressed assets of MSMEs as NPA till March 31, 2020 and work on recasting their debt. Also, the market participants will keep their eyes and ears open to all-important GST Council meet as they pin their hopes on some major announcements that can help to boost consumption and prevent any further deepening of the slowdown in the country. At the time of writing, the SGX Nifty was trading up by 29 points at 10,734 mark.
The Asian markets were seen trading with a positive bias on Friday as deputy level talks between the US and China resumed in Washington, followed by high-levels talks in October. In Japan, the benchmark Nikkei 225 advanced 0.47 per cent, the Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was up 0.23 per cent and the China’s Shanghai Composite rose 0.10 per cent.
Back home, Thursday turned out to be a terrible day for the markets as key benchmark indices plunged over a per cent. In Thursday’s session, the domestic cues played a spoilsport, wherein the reports of lower rate of growth in tax collection, and weather report by IMD that stated the monsoon shows no signs of withdrawal and floods damaging crops, spooked the investors’ sentiments. The BSE Sensex and Nifty plummeted 1.29 and 1.25 per cent, respectively. The broader indices also fell sharply with Nifty Midcap and Smallcap ending lower by 1.60 and 1.47 per cent, respectively. All the sectoral indices traded under tremendous pressure and ended with deep losses. Nifty Media, Nifty PSU Bank and Nifty Private Bank were the top losers. The advance-decline ratio was inclined towards decliners.
The US stocks taped off in the second half of the session and ended the session on a mixed note for the second straight day on Thursday. On the macroeconomic front, Conference Board’s Index of Leading Economic Indicators for August was flat, existing home sales unexpectedly rose and initial jobless claims were lower than expected. Following these news, the Dow shed 0.2 per cent, while the S&P 500 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite posted meager gains of 0.06 and 0.1 per cent.
The European stock markets rallied on Thursday as investors digested unchanged monetary policy decisions from the Bank of England. The Germany’s DAX gained 0.55 per cent and the France’s CAC 40 ended up 0.68 per cent. The UK’s FTSE 100 closed higher by 0.58 per cent.