It's a bad morning for global markets and that's the backdrop under which one will have to operate today. US markets sold off completely on the fear of China selling off yesterday. China plunged 10% since morning and has ever since recovered.

In fact China is the only index in Asia, ironically, which is marginally in the green but the rest is a sea of red. All Asian markets are down between 3-5%. Gold, silver and a lot of the Asian currencies have sold off and some of the base metals and crude have also declined.

I don’t know how much of Budget talk will be swirling around in the market right now because first one has to wade through the whack we have got globally.

It has been a very sharp crack in the US markets, both the Dow and Nasdaq have plunged, China might have recovered but all the Asian markets are down deep in the red. There is a clear palpable fear that there might be some exodus of hot money or hedge fund money out of the emerging markets right now, which is leading all markets, commodities and currencies down.

So it is a difficult environment and coming after two weeks of fairly bad stretch in the Indian markets, I think traders should be in a for a bit of a fall this morning. I don’t know how deep the cut could be, given that Indian markets fell a little bit in anticipation yesterday, 250-300 points early in the day and then hopefully, or maybe the FM can turn things around a little bit but for the morning. Investors should brace oneself for a bit of fall, the emerging markets will pull us down.

Contd on Pg 2....