The market is expected to open in the green as trends in the SGX Nifty indicate a positive opening for the broader index in India with a gain of 72 points on Friday.
The BSE Sensex declined 147 points to 59,958, while the Nifty50 fell 38 points to 17,858 and formed a bearish candle on the daily charts with long lower shadow indicating support-based buying.
As per the pivot charts, we have the key support level for the Nifty at 17,785, followed by 17,741, and 17,671. If the index moves up, the key resistance levels to watch out for are 17,925, followed by 17,969 and 18,039.
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:
A gauge of global stocks climbed on Thursday while longer-dated US Treasury yields and the dollar fell after a reading of consumer prices fed expectations the Federal Reserve may have the leeway to scale back the size of future interest rate hikes.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 216.96 points, or 0.64 percent, to 34,189.97, the S&P 500 gained 13.56 points, or 0.34 percent, to 3,983.17 and the Nasdaq Composite added 69.43 points, or 0.64 percent, to 11,001.11.
Asia-Pacific shares were mixed, after the US consumer price index showed inflation cooled in December, raising investors’ hopes that the Federal Reserve can return to slower interest rate hikes.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 was up 0.76 percent. Japan’s Nikkei 225′s dipped 0.3 percent in its first hour of trade, while the Topix declined fractionally. The Kospi rose 0.92 percent, and the Kosdaq edged up 0.53 percent.
Trends in the SGX Nifty indicate a positive opening for the broader index in India with a gain of 72 points. The Nifty futures were trading around 17,990 levels on the Singaporean exchange.
Trends in the SGX Nifty indicate a negative opening for the broader index in India with a loss of 64 points. The Nifty futures were trading around 18,430 levels on the Singaporean exchange.
US inflation cools again, giving Fed room to downshift on rates
A key gauge of US inflation posted a moderate increase in December, adding to evidence that some price pressures are easing and offering the Federal Reserve room to slow the pace of interest-rate hikes next month.
Excluding food and energy, the consumer price index rose 0.3 percent last month and was up 5.7 percent from a year earlier, according to a US Labor Department report on Thursday. Economists see the gauge — known as the core CPI — as a better indicator of underlying inflation than the headline measure. The overall CPI fell 0.1 percent from the prior month, with cheaper energy costs fueling the first decline in 2 1/2 years. The measure was up 6.5 percent from a year earlier.
Infosys on January 12 reported a 13.4 percent rise in its consolidated net profit for the quarter ended December 2022 at Rs 6,586 crore. The country's second-largest IT firm had reported a net profit of Rs 5,809 crore in the same quarter last year.
Its consolidated revenue from operations increased 20.2 percent to Rs 38,318 crore against Rs 31,867 crore in the corresponding quarter last year, Infosys said in an exchange filing.
The reported numbers beat estimates. According to a poll of brokerages, consolidated revenue was expected to come in at Rs 37,613 crore, up 18 percent year-on-year (YoY) growth. In comparison, consolidated profit after tax (PAT) was estimated to increase 10.5 percent YoY to Rs 6,418 crore.
India's headline retail inflation rate fell for the third month in a row in December, coming in at 5.72 percent – 18 basis points below the consensus estimate of 5.9 percent.
More importantly, Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation averaged 6.1 percent in October-December, well below the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) forecast of 6.6 percent.
In any other quarter, inflation undershooting the central bank's forecasts by such a large margin would send the market's hopes soaring. However, these are extraordinary times.
"Despite two months of below 6 percent headline inflation, we think the RBI is unlikely to feel very comfortable with the details, given demand-driven price pressures remain elevated," noted Rahul Bajoria, chief India economist at Barclays.
India's IIP growth rebounds to 7.1% in November
India's industrial growth, as per the Index of Industrial Production (IIP), accelerated to 7.1 percent in November, data released on January 12 by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation showed.
IIP growth returned to positive territory in November after it contracted by 4 percent in October - the industry's worst performance in 26 months. The figure has now been revised to show industrial output shrunk by 4.2 percent in October. The IIP in November stood at 137.1, which is higher as compared to 128 in the year-ago period. In October 2022, an IIP of 129.3 was clocked.
Results on January 13 and January 14
Wipro, L&T Finance Holdings, Aditya Birla Money, Just Dial, The Anup Engineering, Choice International, Ganesh Housing Corporation, and Rajnish Wellness will be in focus ahead of quarterly earnings on January 13.
HDFC Bank, Avenue Supermarts, Infomedia Press, Nouveau Global Ventures, and ZF Steering Gear will be in focus ahead of quarterly earnings on January 14.
Foreign institutional investors (FII) have net sold shares worth Rs 1,662.63 crore, continuing selling for 15th session in a row, but domestic institutional investors (DII) have managed to offset the FII outflow by net buying shares worth Rs 2,127.65 crore on January 12, as per provisional data available on the NSE.
Stocks under F&O ban on NSE
Indiabulls Housing Finance and GNFC will remain under the NSE F&O ban list for January 13. Securities thus banned under the F&O segment include companies where derivative contracts have crossed 95 percent of the market-wide position limit.
With inputs from Reuters and other agencies
