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

Stock Market News

The market is expected to open in the green as trends in SGX Nifty indicate a positive opening for the broader index in India with a gain of 74 points.

The BSE Sensex fell 311 points to 58,775 yesterday while the Nifty50 declined 83 points to 17,522 and formed a bearish candle which resembles a bearish engulfing kind of pattern on daily charts.

As per pivot charts, the key support level for the Nifty is 17,431 followed by 17,340. If the index moves up, the key resistance levels to watch out for are 17,670 and 17,818.

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

The Wall Street ended sharply higher on Thursday, lifted by gains in Nvidia and other technology-related stocks as investors focused on the Federal Reserve's Jackson Hole conference for clues about the central bank's policy outlook.

The S&P 500 climbed 1.41% to end the session at 4,199.12 points. The Nasdaq gained 1.67% to 12,639.27 points, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.98% to 33,291.78 points.

Asian markets

Shares in the Asia-Pacific rose on Friday as investors look ahead to Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s speech at Jackson Hole later stateside. Japan’s Nikkei 225 gained 0.81% while the Topix added 0.45%. In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.19%. The Kospi in South Korea advanced 0.53%. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was 0.13% higher.

SGX Nifty

Trends in SGX Nifty indicate a positive opening for the broader index in India with a gain of 74 points. The Nifty futures were trading around 17,662 levels on the Singaporean exchange.

US economy contracts mildly 

The US economy contracted at a more moderate pace than initially thought in the second quarter as consumer spending blunted some of the drag from a sharp slowdown in inventory accumulation, dispelling fears that a recession was underway.

Gross domestic product shrank at a 0.6% annualized rate last quarter, the government said in its second estimate of GDP. That was an upward revision from the previously estimated 0.9% pace of decline. The economy contracted at a 1.6% rate in the first quarter. Economists polled by Reuters had expected GDP would be revised slightly up to show output falling at a 0.8% rate.

Bank credit growth accelerates

Bank credit growth accelerated to 14.2 percent in the quarter ended June 2022 from 6 percent in the same period of the previous year, RBI data showed on Thursday. In the quarter ended March 2022, bank credit had expanded by 10.8 percent.

Aggregate deposit growth (year-on-year) has remained in the range 9.5 - 10.2 percent during the last five quarters. Metropolitan branches continue to account for over half of the bank deposits and their share increased marginally over the last one year.

Disclosure requirement for AMCs

Capital markets regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) on Thursday came out with a disclosure framework for asset management companies (AMCs), mandating a scheme-wise disclosure of investments in securities of entities that are excluded from the definition of "associate".

Under the rules, associate includes a person who directly or indirectly, by himself, or in combination with relatives, exercises control over the AMC or the trustee, among others. As part of the new framework, AMCs will have to make scheme-wise disclosure of investments, as on the last day of each quarter, in securities of such entities that are excluded from the definition of "associate", Sebi said in a circular.

FII and DII data

Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) net bought shares worth Rs 369.06 crore, while domestic institutional investors (DIIs) net sold shares worth Rs 334.31 crore on August 25, as per provisional data available on the NSE.

Inflation likely to be more persistent than expected: Fed's Bullard

St. Louis Federal Reserve President James Bullard on Thursday said he expects high inflation to be more persistent than many have been expecting and interest rates now are not yet high enough to begin curtailing price pressures.

In an interview on CNBC in Jackson, Wyoming, Bullard repeated he would like the Fed's benchmark rate to climb from its current range of 2.25% to 2.50% to between 3.75% and 4.00% by year end, adding such "front loading" of rate hikes appeals to him because "you show you are serious about inflation fighting."

Dollar edges lower as investors wait on Fed's Powell

The dollar index slipped while the euro was steady on Thursday in choppy trading as investors awaited Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell's speech on Friday for further clues about the pace of the US central bank's rate hikes.

The dollar index fell 0.14% to 108.46. It is holding just below a 20-year high of 109.29 reached in on July 14. The currency edged higher after data on Thursday showed the US economy contracted at a more moderate pace than initially thought in the second quarter.

Tokyo core consumer prices rise

Core consumer prices in Japan's capital Tokyo rose in August at their fastest pace in nearly eight years, as inflationary pressures broadened due to higher fuel and raw material costs.

The core consumer price index for Tokyo gained 2.6% in August, above the median market forecast for a 2.5% rise in a Reuters poll. The pace of increase, which followed a 2.3% gain in the previous month, was the fastest since October 2014.

With inputs from Reuters and other agencies