Market Ahead, September 23: Top factors that could guide markets today

The Indian markets are expected to open flat today, tracking mixed cues from the Asian indices. At 7:30 AM, the SGX Nifty was trading with slight cuts at around 11,160 levels. Investors should also brace themselves for volatility today due to the scheduled expiry of monthly derivative contracts tomorrow.

In overnight trade, Wall Street stocks rebounded, led by a 5.7per cent jump in Amazon. The Dow Jones rose half a per cent, the S&P 500 gained 1 per cent and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite added 1.7 per cent.

In Asia, Japan’s markets reopened after a two-day public holiday and were trading half a per cent lower. Korea's Kospi was also down half a per cent while Hong Kong's Hang Seng was flat. Meanwhile, Australia rose 1 per cent in early trading.

Back home, easing of tensions between India and China might provide investors some relief. According to media reports, both India and China have agreed that there should not be any further escalation in tensions. However, there still was no official word on the outcome of Monday's talks.

On the Covid-front, India on Tuesday recorded 80,391 new cases, taking the overall caseload to over 56 lakh. Meanwhile. the death toll has now surpassed the 90,000-mark.

Tata Group stocks are expected to be in focus in today's session after the SP group, owned by the billionaire Mistry family, yesterday told the Supreme Court that it would exit Tata Sons, provided an early, fair, and equitable solution was reached. The Mistry family owns 18.37 per cent in Tata Sons and is its largest minority shareholder.

And now, a look at some other top news.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell yesterday told a congressional panel that America’s economy has shown “marked improvement” since the coronavirus pandemic drove it into recession, but the path ahead remains uncertain and the US central bank will do more if needed.

The National Stock Exchange and the Singapore Exchange have entered into a formal agreement to cement the key terms to operationalise the NSE IFSC-SGX Connect.  Both NSE and SGX will also withdraw arbitration proceedings. The two were engaged in arbitration proceedings under the Arbitration and Conciliation Act over the trading of Nifty products for more than two years.

And to wrap up things, a few updates from the primary market. The IPO of Computer Age Management Services was subscribed 1.93 times on the second day of bidding while the IPO of Chemcon Speciality Chemicals was subscribed 12.65 times on Tuesday. Both the issues will close for public subscription today.

Meanwhile, the Angel Broking IPO was subscribed 0.77 times on the first day of issue yesterday, with the retail investor portion being subscribed 1.46 times.