Market Ahead, July 2: Top factors that could guide markets today

The Indian markets are likely to track their global peers today in the absence of major domestic cues. In that regard, the SGX Nifty is indicating an open at around 10,416 levels for the Nifty, up 17 points from Nifty futures' previous close. 

On Wall Street, the S&P 500 gained 0.5 per cent and the Nasdaq losed 0.95 per cent higher to kick off the third quarter. On the other hand, the Dow Jones fell 0.3 per cent.

In Asia, Hong Kong's Hang Seng index rose 1.3 per cent in early deals while Australia's ASX gained 0.7 per cent. Japan's Nikkei was also up 0.2 per cent.

In commodities, Brent crude was last trading at $41.95 a barrel. According to a Bloomberg report, OPEC slashed oil production to the lowest level since 1991 after Saudi Arabia faithfully delivered the extra curbs promised in June, and the laggards, though still trailing in implementing the cuts, stepped up their performance.

Moving on to domestic cues, India's total number of coronavirus cases has exceeded the 6 lakh-mark while around 17,840 people have died from the fatal disease, according to Worldometer data. 

Besides, investors might react to GST collection data announced yesterday according to which it increased to Rs 90,917 crore in June, as against Rs 62,009 crore in May and just Rs 32,294 crore in April. Returns for previous months were filed in June, following a relaxation in the deadline, which led to the surge in collections.

Market participants will also track the auto sales data for June which is set to induce stock-specific moves. Some of the companies announced their sales data yesterday and even though headline numbers show car sales have halved from the same time last year, signs of recovery in rural India have come as a glimmer of hope for the industry. While Maruti Suzuki's doubled its sales from May, Hero MotoCorp's dispatches last month grew four-fold when compared to May this year. Although the same figures was 27 per cent lower on a year-on-year basis.

On the results front, only two companies are scheduled to announce their March quarter earnings today.

Besides, a report by ICICI Securities indicates that pharma companies such as Abbott India, Pfizer, and Ipca Lab are among the eleven companies that are likely to be included in the F&O segment. Other stocks that qualify for the inclusion are Aarti Industries, Adani Gas, ICICI General Insurance, PI Industries, and Trent, L&T Infotech, HDFC AMC, and Deepak Nitrite. As such, these stocks might trade actively in today's session.

And now, a quick look at other headlines.

The government has approved a scheme under which the eligible non-bank lenders will be provided short-term liquidity through a special purpose vehicle set up by the SBICAP securities. Under the scheme, the SPV will purchase the short-term papers from eligible NBFCs or housing finance companies, which will utilise the proceeds under this scheme solely for the purpose of extinguishing existing liabilities.

Fast-tracking the proposal to run private trains in the country, the Railways has initiated the process to rope in players to operate 151 passenger trains over 109 origin destination pairs of routes.