Market Ahead, January 5: All you need to know before the opening bell

Indian benchmark indices are likely to snap their 9-day winning run and open with deep cuts tracking poor cues from global peers. At around 7.25 am, Nifty futures on the Singapore Exchange traded 103 points down at 14073, indicating a gap-down start for Indian markets.

The losses follow a sharp slide on Wall Street on Monday, the first trading day of the year, as risk appetite ebbed amid upcoming runoff elections in Georgia and the persistent surge in coronavirus cases.

Runoff elections in Georgia, which are set to determine whether Democrats take effective control of Congress to push President-elect Joe Biden’s agenda, are impacting market sentiment. Traders are weighing scenarios such as the possibility of greater US fiscal stimulus, higher taxes and more regulation under such a so-called “blue wave.”

All three main indices hit two-week lows. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.25%, the S&P 500 lost 1.48% and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 1.47%.

Consequently, Asian shares too edged lower on Tuesday. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan fell 0.12% while Australian stocks fell 0.16%. Japanese shares lost 0.47% after a media report that the government will curb business hours in Tokyo and surrounding cities from Thursday.

In another development, nearly 56 million people in England will return to a full coronavirus lockdown, possibly until mid-February, to try to cut spiralling infection rates, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Monday.

That apart, bitcoin’s rally fizzled as the famously volatile cryptocurrency sank as much as 17% before steadying. Bitcoin was last down 8% at $30,542.

Now, a look at the stock-specific developments that are likely to sway the market today:

All the three bidders of DHFL -- Oaktree, Piramal and the Adani group -- have valued the housing finance company's shares at zero, thus giving no upside to its shareholders when it is offered to the highest bidder by January 14. As on Monday, DHFL had a market valuation of Rs 941 crore as its stock was traded at Rs 30 a share.

HDFC's individual loan business continued to see improvement during the October-December period. For the nine months ending December 31, 2020, individual loan disbursements stood at 86% of the same period last year. Gross income from dividend during the quarter at Rs 2 crore from Rs 4 crore.

Bajaj Finance's AUM rose 4.66% quarter-on-quarter to Rs 1.43 lakh crore in the October-December quarter, however, it contracted 1% year-on-year. The company added 6 million new loans in Q3 as compared with 7.7 million a year ago. Further, the total deposits of the NBFC rose to Rs 23,800 crore in Q3, up 17% year-on-year.

The government and Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) of India should allow IDBI Bank to come out of the prompt corrective action (PCA) framework before they go ahead with the stake sale in the lender, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has suggested.