Negative opening likely amid discouraging cues from Asian peers

The bulls, after recording a hat-trick of gains on D-Street, may halt their upward march on Thursday. In early trading, the SGX Nifty is trading lower by 26 points at 11,647 level and the landscape has turned red for the global peers. The bull camp may blame this on President Donald Trump’s most recent comment about trade talks between the US and China that they have a long way to go to reach a deal. ACC and Colgate Palmolive are some of the prominent names to be in focus today on the earnings front.

Asian stock markets sank in a sea of red on Thursday after Wall Street ended lower overnight and trade concerns have flared up again after comments from US President. The Japanese stock index Nikkei 225 has plunged 1.56 per cent, China’s Shanghai Composite index and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng were down by 0.71 per cent and 0.62 per cent, respectively.

Back home, key equity benchmark indices ended Wednesday’s session with modest gains, thereby logging third consecutive day of gains. Nifty closed within striking distance of the 11,700 mark, up by 0.21 per cent, and BSE Sensex added 0.22 per cent to close at 39,216. The broader market indices like Nifty Midcap and Smallcap ended lower, thereby underperforming the frontline gauges. On the sectoral front, barring Nifty Auto and Nifty Pharma, all other indices ended in the green, with Nifty PSU Bank and Nifty FMCG emerging top gainers.

In the US, markets opened lower and continued to struggle throughout the day. The weakness on Wall Street was seen on the back of release of economic data like housing starts, which dipped to an annualized rate of 1.25 million units for the month of June, falling short of market expectations, and building permits for the month also declined. At the close of trading on Wednesday, the Dow ended with a decline of 0.4 per cent, the S&P 500 ended lower by 0.7 per cent and the tech-heavy Nasdaq dropped 0.5 per cent.

The European equities finished Wednesday’s session in the red as market participants digested some mixed earnings reports. While economic data was on the softer side, Eurozone construction output declined for the third straight month in May, while UK consumer price inflation came in roughly in line with expectations for June. Germany’s DAX declined 0.72 per cent, France’s CAC 40 and UK’s FTSE 100 ended lower by 0.70 per cent and 0.55 per cent, respectively.