Top 10 things to know before the market opens

The Indian stock market is expected to open in the green as trends on SGX Nifty indicate a gap-up opening for the index in India with a 155 points gain.

On December 20, the BSE Sensex plunged 1,190 points, or 2.09 percent, to 55,822, while the Nifty50 declined 371 points, or 2.18 percent, to 16,614 and formed a bearish candle on the daily charts. However, the market saw a bit of recovery in the last couple of hours of trade.

According to pivot charts, the key support levels for the Nifty are placed at 16,402.9, followed by 16,191.6. If the index moves up, the key resistance levels to watch out for are 16,832.8 and 17,051.4.

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:

US Markets

U.S. stocks ended trading on Monday down by more than 1%, pressured lower by surging Omicron coronavirus cases and a possible fatal blow to a $1.75 trillion U.S. domestic spending bill, with oil prices plunging.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 1.23% lower at 34,932.16, while the S&P 500 ended the day down 1.14% at 4,568.02. The Nasdaq Composite dropped 1.24% to 14,980.94.

Asian Markets

Asian indices are trading higher on Tuesday, with Nikkei gained nearly 2 percent, while Straits Times, Hang Seng up 0.5 percent each.

SGX Nifty

Trends on SGX Nifty indicate a gap-up opening for the index in India with a 155 points gain. The Nifty futures were trading at 16,818.50 on the Singaporean Exchange around 07:20 hours IST.

MapmyIndia to debut today

CE Info Systems, widely known as MapmyIndia, will make its debut on the bourses on December 21. Experts largely feel the listing premium could be in the range of 50-80 percent over the issue price, though there could be some impact of current market volatility.

The expected listing premium is largely attributed to the company's healthy financials with no debt burden, and stellar subscription to its initial public offering (IPO).

MapmyIndia, which offers proprietary digital maps as a service (MaaS), software as a service (SaaS) and platform as a service (PaaS), received tremendous response from investors as the offer was subscribed 154.71 times during December 9-13 with support from all kind of investors.

Non-institutional investors bought shares 424.69 times the portion set aside for them, the qualified institutional buyers’ portion was booked 196.36 times, while the reserved portion for retail investors was subscribed 15.20 times.

CCI approves acquisition of shareholding in Air India by Tata Group

The Competition Commission of India (CCI) on December 20 approved the acquisition of shareholding in national carrier Air India by Talace, an entity affiliated to salt-to-software conglomerate Tata Group.

Talace, which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Tata Sons, has also been allowed by the anti-trust regulator to acquire shares in Air India Express and Air India SATS Airport Services, the CCI tweeted.

With Joe Biden spending plan blocked, economists lower 2022 growth forecasts

Some economists expect the U.S. economy to grow more slowly next year after a key Democratic lawmaker dealt a seemingly fatal blow to President Joe Biden’s $1.75 trillion spending plan, further clouding an outlook that was facing heightened risk from the rapid spread of the Omicron variant of COVID-19.

Goldman Sachs lowered its GDP growth forecast for 2022 as did Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody’s Analytics, after U.S. Senator Joe Manchin said on Sunday he could not support Biden’s ambitious ”Build Back Better” proposal, which would expand the social safety net and tackle climate change.

Dollar on back foot as Treasury yields soften

The dollar hovered below recent highs on Tuesday having lost ground overnight after a blow to Democratic spending plans in Washington, but worries about the Omicron coronavirus variant kept risk currencies in check.

The dollar index , which measures the currency against six major peers, was last at 96.513, having lost ground on both the euro and the yen .

Oil prices edge higher

Oil prices edged higher on Tuesday, though investors remained worried about the rapid spread of the Omicron coronavirus variant globally, prompting countries to consider more restrictions potentially denting fuel demand.

Brent crude futures increased by 9 cents, or 0.1%, to $71.61 a barrel by 0105 GMT, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures rose by 23 cents, or 0.3%, to $68.84 a barrel.

FII and DII data

Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) net sold shares worth Rs 3,565.36 crore, while domestic institutional investors (DIIs) net bought shares worth Rs 2,764.02 crore in the Indian equity market on December 20, as per provisional data available on the NSE.

Stocks under F&O ban on NSE

Two stocks - Escorts, and Indiabulls Housing Finance - are under the F&O ban for December 21. Securities in the ban period under the F&O segment include companies in which the security has crossed 95 percent of the market-wide position limit.

With inputs from Reuters & other agencies