Market Ahead, April 1: Top Factors That Could Guide Markets Today

The Indian benchmark indices ended on a positive note yesterday. The Sensex rose 1,028 points to 29,468 while Nifty50 closed 317 points higher at 8,598. However, going by the early trends in the SGX Nifty, the Indian markets may open with a cut of nearly 1 per cent today.

This is in line with the trends in the global markets. Shares on Wall Street tumbled on Tuesday, after the United States marked 700 deaths in a single day from COVID-19 for the first time on Tuesday. The Dow Jones fell 1.8 per cent, the S&P 500 lost 1.6 per cent and the Nasdaq Composite dropped nearly 1 per cent.

Asian shares were mixed on Wednesday. South Korea's Kospi was flat while China A50 was up nearly half a per cent. Japan's Nikkeri, on the other hand, was down over 1 per cent in early trade. Australian shares were up over 3 per cent. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan gained 0.35 per cent in early trade.

In commodities, Brent crude futures ended 2 cents lower at $22.74 a barrel.

Here's a look at the major news and developments:

The Centre will borrow Rs 4.88 trillion, or 62.56 per cent of the 2020-21 gross borrowing target of Rs 7.8 trillion, in April-September, the government and the Reserve Bank of India said on Tuesday.

The government has sharply cut interest rates on small savings scheme by up to 1.4 percentage points for the first quarter of FY21 to facilitate banks to lower their rates. Interest rates on one, two and three-year time deposits have been reduced to 5.5 percent each from 6.9 percent in the January-March quarter.

NSE has revised the market lot size of Nifty Bank to 25 from the current 20. This will be applicable from July 2020 contract.

The number of coronavirus infections globally headed toward 800,000.  The Fed is now allowing foreign central banks to exchange their holdings of U.S. Treasury securities for overnight dollar loans.

Starting today, automobile companies will starting releasing sales numbers for March. According to a Business Standard report, these auto sales for the month could see a 50 per cent year-on-year (YoY) decline in volumes, given the lockdown and decline in footfall during the second half of the month.

Moreover, the merger of 10 public sector banks into 4 comes into effect from today. Following this merger, Oriental Bank of Commerce and United Bank of India will be merged into Punjab National Bank (PNB); Syndicate Bank into Canara Bank; Allahabad Bank into Indian Bank; and Andhra Bank and Corporation Bank into Union Bank of India.

And, in the end, a reminder, that the equity markets will remain closed tomorrow for 'Ram Navami'.

Read by: Kanishka Gupta