SGX Nifty indicates an ominous start!

Indian markets are likely to begin the final trading session of the week on a cautious note as Coronavirus pandemic is breathing new life into US-China trade war. Also, traders may want to stay light ahead of the long weekend as Monday is a holiday. At the time of writing, SGX Nifty was trading down by 50 points at 9,031 levels. The gyan mantra for the day is to remain cautious and not indulge into any kind of aggressive buying.

On the earnings front, key names such as APLLTD, JSW Steel, UPL, Trent are slated to announce their quarterly earnings today.

Asian markets are trading in red on the last trading session of the week; blame it on the renewed tension between US and China. Hong Kong’s is bleeding red as it’s down by more than three per cent, China’s Shanghai Composite has lost 0.68 per cent and Japan’s Nikkei has shed 0.42 per cent.

On Thursday, Indian benchmark indices managed to close in a positive territory for the third straight session but it wiped out half of the gains to close off the day’s high. Nifty added 0.44 per cent and BSE Sensex rose 0.37 per cent. In the broader market, both Nifty Mid-cap and Small-cap closed 0.78 and 0.61 per cent higher, respectively. Market breadth was positive on Thursday. The advance-decline ratio too was in favour of the bulls. On the sectoral front, Nifty Auto, Nifty FMCG and Nifty Metal were the top gainers while, on the flipside, Nifty Private Bank and Nifty Financial Services ended as the top loser.

On Thursday, US indices were seen under a selling pressure due to the dual impact of the pandemic and worsening of Sino-US relations. US Senate passed bill to delist Chinese stocks from domestic exchanges and on the other hand, Coronavirus hit two shocking new milestones i.e. five million total worldwide cases and a record of 100,000 new cases daily. Further, the weekly initial jobless claims continue to paint a painful picture. At close, Dow fell 0.4 per cent, S&P 500 dropped 0.8 per cent and Nasdaq plunged one per cent. European equities finished mostly lower on Thursday with the markets digesting a host of data.