All eyes today will be on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's video message at 9 am wherein the PM will speak to the nation on control of the spread of the coronavirus pandemic.
In his video-conference with chief ministers yesterday, Modi called for staggered movement of people after the lockdown. Coronavirus pandemic has infected at least 2,069 people and caused 53 deaths in India, while across the world, infections have crossed one million. The World Bank yesterday approved $1-billion emergency financing for India to tackle the coronavirus outbreak.
Now, let's look at the trade setup and global cues for the day. The Indian equity market closed lower in the previous trading session. The Sensex ended 1,203 points down at 28,265 while Nifty settled 344 points lower at 8,254. For today, the SGX Nifty is trading slightly lower, so expect a flat to lower start for the domestic indices.
In commodities, crude prices posted their biggest-one day gains on record on Thursday after US President Donald Trump said he expects Saudi Arabia and Russia to cut oil output by as much as 10 million to 15 million barrels, and Saudi state media said the kingdom was calling an emergency meeting of producers to deal with the market turmoil. As a result, Brent futures rose 21 per cent to settle at $29.94 a barrel.
Following the surge in oil, world equity markets climbed on Thursday. On the Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 2.24 per cent, the S&P 500 gained 2.28 per cent, and the Nasdaq Composite added 1.72 per cent.
Asian markets also looked to latch onto Wall Street’s overnight gains
Japan's Nikkei traded 0.7 per cent higher in Friday's early deals, and Australia’s benchmark was up 1.5 per cent in early trade. Hong Kong stocks though were trading with half a per cent cut.
Meanwhile, growth in India's manufacturing sector fell to a four-month low in March, with export orders crashing and domestic demand rising marginally, said a monthly survey released on Wednesday. The Nikkei India Manufacturing PMI stood at 51.8 in March, after February’s 54.5 — much below the eight-year high of 55.3 in January. Investors will react to the somber data today
Among individual stocks, Reliance Industries will be in focus today after the oil to telecom conglomerate yesterday said the company’s board has approved a proposal to raise Rs 25,000 crore through non convertible debentures in multiple tranches.
Moreover, rating agency Moody’s changed the outlook for the banking system to negative from stable while ICRA said it expects banks and non-banking financial companies to see a spike in non-performing assets.
Read by: Kanishka Gupta
 "Market Ahead, April 3: All You Need To Know Before The Opening Bell")
