SUMMARY
Indian shares may start sharply negative on Thursday amid subdued global sentiments. The Singapore-based SGX Nifty Futures, an early indicator of Nifty50's performance, indicated a red start as it declined to 17,833, down 60 points or 0.3 percent, at 7:40 am. Among major pre-market open cues today, Nasdaq declined over 3 percent, crude oil is down over 1%, and Bitcoin slipped 5 percent.
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Wall Street: Stocks closed lower on Wall Street Wednesday after minutes from the Federal Reserve’s last meeting raised expectations that the central bank will raise rates faster to fight inflation. S&P fell nearly 2 percent. The Dow Jones fell over 1 percent, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq declined over 3 percent.
2 / 10Asian equities: Asian shares were trading lower Thursday following losses on Wall Street. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan is down over 0.4 percent. Shares in Japan are down over 1 percent. Chinese blue chips are down 0.2 percent. Hong Kong’s HSI bucked the trend and inched 0.3 percent higher. South Korea’s Kospi declined 0.45 percent. Elsewhere in Australia, stocks declined over 1 percent.
3 / 10D-Street: The Indian shares closed higher Wednesday for the 4th straight session as Sensex closed above 60,000 once again, rising over 365 points. And the Nifty50 index settled at 17,925, up 120 points. Gains in Bajaj Twins, ICICI Bank, and Kotak Mahindra Bank shares pushed the benchmarks higher.
4 / 10Crude oil: Oil pared gains after the release of minutes from Fed showed policymakers may have to raise interest rates quicker than expected. On Thursday, both benchmarks were down nearly 1 percent, with the Brent crude at $79.93 and the US oil at $77.16.
5 / 10Rupee: The rupee surged 20 paise to close at 74.38 Wednesday, propped by foreign banks’ dollar sales and fund inflows into domestic equities. Meanwhile, the dollar index fell 0.12 percent to 96.14.
6 / 10Gold:Gold futures on MCX Wednesday rose by Rs 90 to Rs 47,949 per 10 grams. Silver futures for delivery in March also rose by over Rs 5 to Rs 62,226 per kilogram. On Thursday, both precious metals were down in the international market, with gold at $1,810 and silver at $22.80 per ounce.
7 / 10Bitcoin: Bitcoin slipped over 5 percent Thursday morning to $43,500-levels as its dominance over altcoins continued shrinking. The coin is down over 6 percent over the past seven days. Meanwhile, Ether prices also declined over 7 percent to $3,500-level.
8 / 10Passenger vehicle retail sales in India witnessed an 11 percent year-on-year decline in December as semiconductor shortage continued to impact the segment, FADA said. Continue reading
9 / 10Services sector: India's services sector activity moderated in December as business activity and sales rose at a softer pace, while price pressures and the possibility of new waves of COVID-19 affected business sentiment, the India Services Business Activity Index showed. Continue reading
10 / 10Economy: Samiran Chakraborty of Citi said with every passing wave, the correlation between mobility restrictions and GDP is reducing. The virus is not having as much of an impact on the economy as it did before. Hence, he is not in a hurry to slash the GDP forecast. But, Omicron could be a factor that will drive both fiscal and monetary policy. Continue reading
