Markets may open flat as Asian peers remain clueless

After a the lull and a hat-trick of declines, the Indian markets saw a scintillating rally on Wednesday with stocks racing to the finish line. However, going by the early trends among the global peers and the SGX Nifty, it seems that markets may open the session flat with negative bias on the eve of April series F&O expiry as there is no clear trend emerging. At the time of writing, SGX Nifty was trading down by 27 points at 11,710 levels. The key results expected to be announced today include Biocon, Maruti, MCX, SBI Life, Nestle India and Tata Steel.

Asian indices are lacking a clear direction on Thursday after the US indices retreated from a record high. The Japanese stock market Nikkei has gained 0.09 per cent, while Hong Kong’s index Hang Seng has lost 0.41  per cent and China’s Shanghai Composite is flat.  

Back home, Wednesday turned out to be a wonderful session for the benchmark indices as the indices logged gains of more than a per cent. The BSE Sensex and Nifty reclaimed their important psychological levels of 39,000 and 11,700. After a positive start, the indices remained thoroughly directionless. However, in the second half of the trading session, bulls made a roaring comeback. The broader market indices underperformed the frontline gauges with Nifty Midcap and Smallcap adding 0.37 per cent and 0.79 per cent, respectively. Talking about the sectoral performance, barring Nifty Auto, all other sectoral indices posted strong gains with Nifty PSU Bank, Nifty Financial Services, Nifty Bank and Nifty Private Bank ending as top gainers for the day.

The US markets lacked clear direction on Wednesday and ended the session with modest losses.  The Dow Industrial Average slipped 0.22 per cent, the S&P 500 lost 0.22 per cent and the tech-heavy Nasdaq shed 0.23 per cent. On the earnings front, a mixed batch of earnings from the marquee names contributed to the choppy trading on Wall Street.

A majority of the European markets ended Wednesday’s session in the negative terrain, weighed down by some disappointing data. The closely watched German business confidence unexpectedly deteriorated for April. The UK’s FTSE 100 ended down by 0.68 per cent and France’s CAC 40 dropped 0.28 per cent, while Germany’s DAX advanced 0.21 per cent.