SUMMARY
The Indian market may open flat on Wednesday 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 was trading 14 points lower at 17,274, at 8:18 am. Among major pre-market cues today, Nasdaq closed half a percent lower, crude oil is close to a one-month high, and Bitcoin is down 4 percent.

Wall Street: Stocks closed mixed on Wall Street Tuesday, leaving S&P 500 just shy of the record high it clocked a day before. It fell 0.1 percent. The Dow Jones rose 0.3 percent, and tech-heavy Nasdaq declined over half a percent.

Asian equities: Asian shares were trading mixed Wednesday as traders assessed the impact of the Omicron variant. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan is down 0.4 percent. Japan's Nikkei index declined over 0.8 percent. Chinese blue chips were down 0.35 percent. Hong Kong’s HSI declined 0.8 percent. South Korea’s Kospi was down 0.8 percent as well. Elsewhere, Australian shares rose nearly 1 percent.

D-Street: The Indian shares closed higher Tuesday with Sensex rising 470 points to 57,897. And the Nifty50 index settled at 17,230, up 145 points. Bank Nifty was up 0.3 percent.

Crude oil: Oil prices gained for the sixth consecutive session as Brent crude gained more ground Wednesday. Both indices are trading near their highest levels in a month. The Brent crude rose 0.13 percent to $76.08 and the US oil surged 0.30 percent to $79.18.

Gold: Gold futures on MCX Tuesday declined by Rs 20 to Rs 48,066 per 10 grams. Silver futures for delivery in March rose by over Rs 200 to Rs 62,300 per kilogram. Both precious metals were falling in the international market Wednesday, with gold at $1,806 and silver at $23.02 per ounce.

Rupee: The rupee rose for the ninth straight session Tuesday, closing 30 paise higher to hit one month high helped by firm domestic markets. Meanwhile, the dollar index fell 0.08 percent to 96.02.

Bitcoin: Bitcoin declined over 4 percent Wednesday morning to trade below $48,000. The coin is up over 2 percent over the past seven days. Ether prices also declined 4 percent to $3,800.

Trend and Progress of Banking in India 2020-21, an RBI report: The balance sheet of scheduled commercial banks (SCBs) expanded in size despite the pandemic. Deposits have increased by 10 percent by September 2021, compared to an 11 percent increase a year ago, an RBI report said. Continue reading

SEBI: Sebi on Tuesday decided to mandate trustees of mutual funds to obtain the consent of unitholders when the majority of trustees decide to wind up a scheme. Continue reading

India’s CBDC: India needs to initially go in for the basic model of central bank digital currency (CBDC) and use the payment system architecture as a backbone to make a state-of-the-art CBDC, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said on Tuesday. Continue reading