Negative start foreseen as Asian peers trade in the red

The key Indian indices are likely to nose-dive at the opening bell as cues from Asian peers are negative. Nifty 50 index futures on the Singapore stock exchange is currently trading in the red, down by 73 points at 10,699.  

Asian stocks declined in early trading on Friday after the mixed close on Wall Street. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng has lost over a per cent, followed by Shanghai Composite and Japan’s Nikkei 225 which have lost 0.70% and 0.10%, respectively.  

Back home, extending their previous session’s rally, frontline indices ended Thursday’s trading with a gain of around a per cent with NSE Nifty and BSE Sensex recapturing their crucial 35,400 and 10,750 levels, respectively. The sentiments remained buoyant throughout the day, despite some profit-taking in the last leg of trading. In the broader market, buying interest remained strong for the second day in a row as Nifty Mid-cap and Small-cap outperformed the frontline indices, logging gains of 1.53% and 2.16%, respectively. Among sectors, all sectoral indices moved higher, with stocks in the Realty and Metals leading the gains.  

The US stocks turned in a mixed performance in Thursday’s session, with Dow closing at its best levels in three months, while the S&P and Nasdaq Composite ended in the negative terrain. The Dow rose 95 points to close at 25,241, while the Nasdaq lost 54 points to finish at 7,635 and the S&P 500 dipped 2 points to end at 2,770. Initial claims for state unemployment benefits decreased by 1,000 to a seasonally adjusted 222,000 for the week ended 2 June,  the US Labour Department said on Thursday. Traders were watchful ahead of the 44th  G7 summit set to get underway in Canada. 

The European stocks ended Thursday’s session with modest losses.  The DAX of Germany weakened by 0.15%, the CAC 40 of France dropped 0.17% while the FTSE 100 failed to open at the usual time due to a technical issue and ended lower by 0.10%.