Stock Market News: Trends in the SGX Nifty indicate a positive opening for the broader index in India with a gain of 47 points on Thursday on the back of supportive Fed decision and a spurt in global markets
The market is expected to open in the green as trends in the SGX Nifty indicate a positive opening for the broader index in India with a gain of 47 points.
The BSE Sensex corrected 637 points, or 1 percent, to 60,657, while the Nifty50 declined nearly 190 points, or 1 percent, to 18,043 and formed a long bearish candle on the daily charts.
As per the pivot charts, we have the key support level for the Nifty at 18,017, followed by 17,965, and 17,880. If the index moves up, the key resistance levels to watch out for are 18,187, followed by 18,240 and 18,325.
Stay tuned to Moneycontrol to find out what happens in the currency and equity markets today. We have collated a list of important headlines across news platforms which could impact Indian as well as international markets:
US Markets
The S&P 500 finished higher on Wednesday but below its session peak after volatile trading following the release of minutes from the Federal Reserve’s last meeting, which showed officials laser-focused on controlling inflation even as they agreed to slow their pace of interest rate hikes.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 133.4 points, or 0.4 percent, to 33,269.77; the S&P 500 gained 28.83 points, or 0.75 percent, to 3,852.97; and the Nasdaq Composite added 71.78 points, or 0.69 percent, to 10,458.76.
Asian Markets
Asia-Pacific markets climbed as investors shrug off the US Federal Reserve’s commitment to higher interest rates in tackling inflation.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.42 percent. In Japan, the Nikkei 225 was up 0.35 percent in its first hour of trade, while the Topix inched up fractionally. The Kospi rose 0.71 percent.
SGX Nifty
Trends in the SGX Nifty indicate a positive opening for the broader index in India with a gain of 47 points. The Nifty futures were trading around 18,158 levels on the Singaporean exchange.
Fed wants ‘flexibility’ on rates as inflation remains key focus, minutes show
All officials at the Federal Reserve’s December 13-14 policy meeting agreed the US central bank should slow the pace of its aggressive interest rate increases, allowing them to continue increasing the cost of credit to control inflation but in a gradual way meant to limit the risks to economic growth.
The minutes of the meeting, which were released on Wednesday, showed that policymakers were still focused on controlling the pace of price increases that threatened to run hotter than anticipated, and worried about any “misperception” in financial markets that their commitment to fighting inflation was flagging.
“Most participants emphasised the need to retain flexibility and optionality when moving the policy to a more restrictive stance,” the minutes said, indicating officials may be prepared to scale back to quarter-percentage-point increases as of the January 31-February 1 meeting, but also remained open to an even higher than anticipated “terminal” rate if high inflation persists.
Oil falls more than 5% on global economy worry, China Covid cases
Oil fell by more than $4 a barrel on Wednesday, posting the steepest percentage loss in the first two trading days of any year for over three decades, as investors worried about fuel demand as the global economy slows and Covid-19 cases grow in China.
Brent futures settled at $77.84 a barrel, falling $4.26, or 5.2 percent. US crude settled at $72.84 a barrel, shedding $4.09, or 5.3 percent.
US job openings remain elevated; manufacturing slump continues
US job openings fell less than expected in November as the labor market remains tight, which could see the Federal Reserve boosting interest rates to a higher level than currently anticipated to tame inflation.
There was, however, encouraging news in the inflation fight, with a survey from the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) on Wednesday showing its measure of prices paid by manufacturers for inputs diving in December to the lowest level since February 2016, discounting the plunge early in the Covid-19 pandemic.
Job openings, a measure of labor demand, slipped 54,000 to 10.458 million on the last day of November, the Labor Department said in its monthly Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, or JOLTS report. Data for October was revised higher to show 10.512 million openings instead of the previously reported 10.334 million. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast 10 million job openings.
MCX faces SEBI crackdown over 2018 spot trading platform development bid
The legal glare India’s leading commodity exchange MCX finds itself under went up by another notch when the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) imposed a penalty on it for attempting to develop a spot trading platform without seeking the prior approval of the market regulator.
The development of spot trading software has been deemed an ‘unrelated activity’ by the Adjudicating Officer’s order dated January 4. MCX has also been penalised for deploying funds to the said firm without the approval of the Board of the market regulator.
Citi trims India’s current account gap forecast to 2.9% of GDP
The shortfall in the current account, the broadest measure of trade in goods and services, will probably be at 2.9 percent of gross domestic product, according to Citi’s India economist Samiran Chakraborty. That is smaller than the 3.3 percent seen previously, and a full percentage point lower than the 3.9 percent predicted in August.
“Key surprise came from the phenomenal growth in services exports in April-September, which goes beyond just software services,” he wrote in a report Wednesday.
While India’s goods exports have turned weak, declining on an average 1.5 percent in the five months to November, services exports have notched up gains averaging nearly 30 percent during the period, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
US manufacturing sector contracts, prices decline in December-ISM
US manufacturing contracted further in December, but weakening demand amid higher borrowing costs pushed a measure of prices paid by factories for inputs to the lowest level in more than 2-1/2 years, signaling that goods disinflation was underway.
The Institute for Supply Management (ISM) said on Wednesday that its manufacturing PMI dropped to 48.4 last month from 49.0 in November, contracting for a second straight month.
FII and DII data
Foreign institutional investors (FII) sold shares worth Rs 2,620.89 crore, while domestic institutional investors (DII) bought shares worth Rs 773.58 crore on January 4, as per provisional data available on the NSE.
Source Moneycontrol…!!!