The Indian equity markets are staring at a firm start today. At 7:10 AM, the SGX Nifty was trading 75 points higher at 11,193 levels on the back of favourable global cues.
Wall Street’s main indexes closed higher overnight as investors weighed progress in US government stimulus efforts against rising Covid-19 cases The Dow Jones rose 0.43 per cent, the S&P 500 gained 0.74 per cent, and the Nasdaq Composite added 1.67 per cent.
Taking cues from the rally in Wall Street, Asian equities were trading firm in Tuesday's early deals. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index was up 0.96 per cent, Japan’s Nikkei rose 0.33 per cent and Australian ASX 200 was up 0.94 per cent. Overall, MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 0.86 per cent.
In commodities, Brent crude rose 0.88 per cent to $43.79 a barrel.
On the results front, investors will first react to IT services firm Tech Mahindra's numbers in which it reported Rs 972 crore in consolidated net profit for June quarter. The figure was 20.9 per cent higher sequentially although on a year-on-year basis it remained flat. Revenue stood at Rs 9,106 crore, up 5.2 per cent YoY, even as it declined 4 per cent sequentially.
Besides, a total of 132 companies, including UltraTech Cement, Nestle India, and IDBI Bank, are scheduled to announce their results today.
Meanwhile, India recorded 50,525 coronavirus cases in just 24 hours, according to Worldometer. The total Covid tally in India now stands at 14.82 lakh, including 33,448 deaths.
ITC might trade actively in today's session after it announced the acquisition of spices manufacturer Sunrise Foods Private Ltd in an all-cash deal valued at Rs 2,150 crore. According to the company, it has acquired shares of SFPL at an "upfront consideration of Rs 2,150 crores on a cash-free, debt-free basis".
And, now a quick look at other top news of the day.
After banning 59 mobile apps, including TikTok, almost a month ago, the Indian government has again cracked down on 47 more 'Chinese-origin' mobile apps with most being clones or lite variants of the ones earlier banned.
The government is working on completing the stake sale process of about 23 public sector companies whose divestment has already been cleared by the Cabinet, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said yesterday. She said the government wants to sell stake in public sector companies at a time when it fetches the right price.
15th Finance Commission Chairman NK Singh yesterday said that India will see a sharp V-shaped recovery in the third and fourth quarter of the current fiscal, but FY21 GDP growth would ultimately be in negative territory as the coronavirus lockdown led to serious demand and supply dislocations.
The Centre has revealed that it released around Rs 14,000 crore to states as compensation for their losses due to the GST for March 2020. This takes the total compensation released for FY20 to Rs 1.65 trillion, against a cess collection of Rs 95,444 crore for this purpose.