Markets may open in the red tracking weak global cues

Indian benchmark indices are expected to open on the negative side amid weak global cues. The SGX Nifty indicates that the Nifty could open with a loss of 27 points around 10,344 at the opening bell.  

Asian stocks markets are in the negative territory on Tuesday. Traders have returned to their desks in Hong Kong after a long holiday. The Hang Seng has lost 241 points and Japan;s Nikkei has shed 265 points. The Shanghai Composite remained closed for the Lunar New Year holiday.  

Back home, markets kicked off the week with modest gains, but gave away all the gains in the first five minutes of trade and continued to drift lower. In the last leg of the session, markets saw a sharp recovery from the lower levels, but still Nifty closed below the important psychological level of 10,400 and BSE Sensex closed below the 34,000-mark at 33,774 with loss of 236 points. All the sectoral indices ended in the red. No surprises for guessing the top loser: Nifty PSU Bank, which declined about 2.46%. Nifty Mid-cap and Nifty Small-cap also ended lower, closing with losses of 1.07% and 1.42%, respectively.  

The US financial markets were closed on Monday on account of President Day.  

The European shares drifted lower on Monday, dragged down by consumer products heavyweight Reckitt Benckiser Group PLC and German automobile maker Daimler AG.  The CAC 40 of France lost 0.48%, Germany’s DAX slipped 0.54% and the FTSE 100 of the UK declined by 0.65%.