Positive start seen following upbeat cues from global peers

The cues from the global markets are cheerful on hopes of easing trade tensions and the set-up is ideal for Indian markets to have a head-start. The SGX Nifty indicates Nifty is likely to open with a gain of 0.18 per cent at 10,955. Some of the big names like Hindustan Zinc, HDFC AMC, Just Dial, Kotak Bank, L&T Finance Holdings and Union Bank will report their quarterly earnings today. 
  
Asian markets are trading in positive terrain on Monday morning following the strong close on the Wall Street on Friday after China gave indications that it would work hard to end the trade war. China’s Shanghai Composite index has advanced 0.74 per cent, Hong Kong’s index Hang Seng has gained 0.37 per cent and Japan’s Nikkei 225 Index has moved up 0.34 per cent. 
  
Back home, the key benchmark indices witnessed a slightly higher opening on Friday; however, the indices soon turned volatile, swinging between gains and losses. But bulls managed to keep their head above the water and ended the week with marginal gains. The BSE Sensex gained 0.03 per cent to end at 36,387 and Nifty ended up 0.02 per cent at 10,907. The broader indices underperformed the benchmark indices with Nifty Mid-cap and Nifty Small-cap ending lower by 0.67 per cent and 1.07 per cent, respectively. Talking about sectoral performance, barring Nifty IT, all other sector indices ended in the red with Nifty Pharma losing about 2.70 per cent as Sun Pharma stock plunged over 12 per cent on a whistleblower complaint.  
  
The US indices, after moving notably higher early in the session, held most of their gains through the session on Friday. The upmove in the stocks was seen on the back of hopes that the trade relationship between the US and China are gradually improving. This positive news outweighed a report from the University of Michigan which showed a weaker-than-expected reading of the US consumer sentiment. The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 1.38 per cent to 24,706, the S&P 500 index surged 1.32 per cent to 2,671 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq moved higher by 1.03 per cent to 7,157. 

The European stocks closed the final trading session of the week firmly higher, aided by trade optimism amid multiple reports of progress being made regarding US-China talks. On the economic front, December UK retail sales declined and the Eurozone current account surplus narrowed. The DAX of Germany soared 2.6 per cent, the CAC of France rose 1.7 per cent and the FTSE 100 of the UK edged up nearly 2 per cent.