Gap-down start on cards

Indian markets are most likely to open on a gap-down start owing to the severe weakness seen on the global shores. At 8:00 am, SGX Nifty was trading down by 1.22 per cent or 139.50 points below the 11,300 mark.

After a warning issued by the US Fed in its July meeting that the ongoing public health crisis would have a lasting disruption to its economy  the Asian equity market displayed a sea of red on Thursday morning. Hong Kong's Hang Seng was the worst impacted as it was down by 1.92 per cent. Japan's Nikkei 225 and China's Shanghai Composite gave away their important psychological mark of 23,000 and 3,400, respectively.

Asian Markets

Indian markets continued to surge upward on a third consecutive day on Wednesday, only to be held down due to profit booking witnessed in the last trading hour. Despite this, Nifty ended above 11,400 mark and Sensex closed above 38,600 mark. Broader indices continued to outperform the benchmark indices with Nifty Mid-Cap and Small-Cap gaining 0.62 and 1.24 per cent, respectively. Talking about the sectoral indices, Nifty Media and Nifty PSU Bank were top gainers, while Nifty FMCG and Nifty Pharma were top losers. India VIX slipped below the 20 mark.

Surprisingly, the US stocks which were seen moving higher early on Wednesday session took a sudden U-turn following the release of the July FOMC minutes where it has chosen to keep the rates closed to zero for as long as possible and continued to express concerns with regard to ongoing pandemic.

The US Fed also underlined that it will keep the $120 billion of bond buying active for more time to come. As Apple became the first ever company to be worth $2 trillion, the stock of the iPhone maker remained in limelight on Wall Street. Meanwhile, European markets ended Wednesday's session in green.

US Markets

Europe Markets

Commodity