Markets may witness positive start despite mixed cues from Asian peers

The outlook for the day is a positive start; however, the big question for the day is to get onboard the bus or to alight it. For the current momentum to sustain, Nifty index needs to sustain above its crucial 200-day moving average and, on the higher side, it needs to decisively close above the 11,090 mark. At the time of writing, SGX Nifty was trading with modest gains of 24 points at 11,057.50.   

Asian indices are trading mixed on Wednesday morning on the back of lacklustre session on the Wall Street overnight. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index has risen 0.31 per cent, while the Japanese stock markets has slipped lower by 0.61 per cent and China’s Shanghai Composite Index has dipped 0.10 per cent.

Back home, Tuesday turned out to be terrific trading session for the bulls with both the BSE Sensex and Nifty registering solid gains of over a per cent. The sentiments got a boost as country’s services sector activity gathered momentum in the month of February and rose to 52.5 from 52.2 in January. The broader markets continued their outperformance for the fourth day in a row, with Nifty Midcap and Smallcap jumping 2.37 per cent and 3.94 per cent, respectively. Talking about sectoral indices, barring Nifty IT, all other sectoral indices ended in the green, with Nifty Auto and Nifty Metal being the top gainers.

The US stock markets started Tuesday session modestly lower on the back of disappointment over service sector data from China and also as China lowered its growth outlook. However, these concerns were overshadowed by the better-than-expected new home sales and as additionally the ISM non-manufacturing index climbed to 59.7 in February. In the end, the Dow Jones closed the day down by 13 points, the S&P slipped by 3 points and the Nasdaq closed near the neutral line.

The European markets edged up on Tuesday on the back of upbeat data in the region. The DAX of Germany gained 0.24 per cent, the CAC 40 ended with a gain of 0.21 per cent and the FTSE 100 of the UK surged 0.69 per cent.