SUMMARY
The Indian market may open flat on Thursday as global peers traded mixed. The Singapore-based SGX Nifty Futures, an early indicator of Nifty50's performance, indicated a flat start for the domestic market as it rose to 17,299, up 0.5 points, at 7:45 am. Among major pre-market cues today, S&P 500 and Dow Jones closed higher, crude oil was up, and Bitcoin is down 4 percent.

Wall Street: Stocks closed a volatile session higher on Wall Street Wednesday, as S&P 500 notched another record high. It rose 0.1 percent. The Dow Jones rose 0.2 percent, and tech-heavy Nasdaq declined over 0.1 percent.

Asian equities: Asian shares were trading mixed Thursday while overnight gains led to a record close for S&P 500. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan is up 0.3 percent. Japan's Nikkei index declined 0.07 percent. Chinese blue chips were up 0.17 percent. Hong Kong’s HSI rose half a percent. South Korea’s Kospi was up 0.07 percent as well. Elsewhere, Australian shares were down 0.07 percent.

D-Street: The Indian shares snapped a two-day winning run to close lower as Sensex declined 90 points to 57,806 and the Nifty50 index settled at 17,213, down 20 points.

Crude oil: Oil prices gained Wednesday after government data showed US crude and fuel inventories fell last week, offsetting concerns that Omicron might tamper global demand. On Thursday, the Brent crude rose 0.23 percent to $79.41 and the US oil surged 0.3 percent to $76.79.

Rupee: The rupee snapped nine-day winning run Wednesday to decline 1 paise to 74.71 against the US dollar as muted domestic equities and the stronger dollar weighed on the sentiment. Meanwhile, the dollar index rose 0.18 percent to 96.37.

Gold: Gold futures on MCX Wednesday declined by Rs 190 to Rs 48,042 per 10 grams. Silver futures for delivery in March also decline by over Rs 650 to Rs 62,514 per kilogram. Both precious metals were falling in the international market Thursday, with gold at $1,803 and silver at $22.80 per ounce.

Bitcoin: Bitcoin continued to trade lower after its sharp fall of 6 percent a day ago. It is currently down over 3 percent to 46,400 amid low volume across exchanges due to end-year holiday season. The coin is down over 4 percent over the past seven days. Ether prices also declined further 4 percent to $3,600.

Banks' NPAs: Macro stress tests of credit risk at commercial banks have revealed gross non-performing assets (NPAs) can jump to 9.5 percent by September 2022 under severe stress scenario or 8.1 percent under the baseline scenario from 6.9 percent in September 2021, RBI said in the Financial Stability Report. Continue reading

Economy growth outlook: RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das notes after the destructive second wave in April-May 2021, the growth outlook has progressively improved. But there are headwinds from global developments and the Omicron virus. Continue reading

Fiscal deficit: RBI also expressed doubts about the government's ability to contain fiscal deficit at the budgeted 6.8 percent this fiscal. This comes after govt moved the second supplementary demand of grants worth Rs 3 lakh crore, despite a massive 83 percent jump in net tax revenue. Continue reading