Stock Market Today: Top 10 things to know before the market opens

Market Today

The benchmark Sensex and Nifty indices are likely to open lower on December 21 as trends in the GIFT Nifty indicate a negative start for the broader index with a loss of 78 points.

The market went from new highs to a steep fall within hours, as the benchmarks wiped out the morning gains to close near the day’s low on December 20 on wide-spread selling.

At close, the Sensex was down 930.88 points, or 1.30 percent, at 70,506.31 and the Nifty was down 302.90 points, or 1.41 percent, at 21,150.20.

The pivot point calculator indicates that the Nifty is likely to see immediate resistance at 21,470 followed by 21,589 and 21,783 levels, while on the lower side, it can take support at 21,084 followed by 20,964 and 20,771 levels.

Stay tuned to Moneycontrol to find out what happens in the currency and equity markets today. We have collated a list of important headlines across news platforms, which could impact Indian as well as international markets.

GIFT Nifty

Trends in the GIFT Nifty indicate a negative start for the broader index in India, with a loss of 78 points or 0.37 percent. The Nifty futures were trading around the 21,139 level.

Trade setup for Thursday: Top 15 things to know before the opening bell

US Markets

US stocks closed lower on Wednesday after an abrupt mid-afternoon nosedive ended Wall Street's impressive rally, which had been driven by falling interest rates and the Federal Reserve's dovish turn.

All three major U.S. stock indexes veered lower late in the session to end 1.3 percent to 1.5 percent below Tuesday's close.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 475.92 points, or 1.27 percent, to 37,082, the S&P 500 lost 70.02 points, or 1.47 percent, to 4,698.35 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 225.28 points, or 1.5 percent, to 14,777.94.

Asian Markets

Asian markets fell Thursday after Wall Street dropped overnight, while investors awaited gross domestic product reading and inflation numbers from the US.

RBI Model pegs India's FY25 GDP growth at 6.0% vs official view of 6.5%

A statistical model developed by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has pegged India's GDP growth for next year at 6.0 percent, 50 basis points lower than the central bank's official forecast of 6.5 percent mentioned in the October edition of its Monetary Policy Report.

"As part of the suite of models for informing monetary policy formulation, the RBI has developed a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model," the central bank's monthly State of the Economy article, released on December 20, said.

SEBI, NSDL and NSE may have to pay over Rs 1,400-cr compensation to Karvy lenders post SAT order

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), the National Stock Exchange (NSE) and the National Securities Depository Limited (NSDL) may face a financial liability of over Rs 1,400 crore, following an order by the Securities Appellate Tribunal on December 20.

According to the order, they have been asked to return the shares pledged by Karvy Stock Broking to the brokerage's lenders or compensate the lenders with the value of the underlying securities along with an interest of 10 percent per annum.

Lenders Axis Bank, ICICI Bank, Bajaj Finance, HDFC Bank and IndusInd Bank approached the tribunal after the market regulator asked the depository to transfer securities that were pledged by Karvy back to the client investors.

Oil Prices

Oil prices settled slightly higher after a choppy trading session on Wednesday as investors worried about global trade disruption and tensions in the Middle East following attacks on ships by Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthi forces in the Red Sea.

Limiting price gains were a surprise US crude inventory build, larger than expected fuel stocks gains and record domestic oil production.

Brent crude futures settled up 47 cents, or 0.6 percent, at $79.70 a barrel, while US West Texas Intermediate crude settled up 28 cents, or 0.4 percent, to $74.22 a barrel.

Gold Prices

Gold prices were largely unchanged on Wednesday, while traders braced for a slew of economic data due later in the week that could offer fresh clues on the US central bank's monetary policy path.

Spot gold fell 0.2 percent to $2,035.97 per ounce, as of 2:27 p.m. ET (1927 GMT). US gold futures settled 0.2 percent lower at $2047.7.

US Dollar

The dollar found a footing on Thursday as a sudden end to a strong rally for US stocks had investors looking for safety and as an unexpected fall in British inflation hit the pound.

Sterling suffered its sharpest drop in two months overnight after British inflation dived below forecasts to an annual 3.9 percent in October, its lowest for two years.

The dollar index, down 1 percent for the year so far, was steady at 102.37 in early Asia trade on Thursday. Ten-year US Treasury yields hit a seven-month low of 3.847 percent in New York.

FII and DII data

Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) net sold shares worth Rs 1,322.08 crore, while domestic institutional investors (DIIs) bought Rs 4,754.34 crore worth of stocks on December 20, provisional data from the National Stock Exchange (NSE) showed.

Stock under F&O ban on NSE

The NSE has added Ashok Leyland, and India Cements to its F&O ban list for December 21, while retaining Balrampur Chini Mills, Delta Corp, Indus Towers, Manappuram Finance, National Aluminium Company, Piramal Enterprises, RBL Bank, and SAIL in the list. Zee Entertainment Enterprises  and IRCTC were removed from the said list.

With inputs from Reuters and other agencies