Market Ahead, July 4: Top factors that are likely to guide markets today

Investors will keep a close eye on the Economic Survey, which will be tabled in Parliament later today. The Union Budget will be presented tomorrow.

India's services sector shrank for the first time in 13 months in June, due to weak sales and high taxation, showed the Nikkei PMI, which fell to 49.6 points in June, down from 50.2 in May.

Back home, monthly auto sales data, progress in monsoon, foreign fund flow, crude oil prices and rupee movement against the US dollar will continue to influence investor sentiment.

The Sensex ended Wednesday's session 23 points higher at 39,839 levels while the broader Nifty50 too settled at 11,917 levels, up 6 points.

Another key development is that IndiaMART InterMESH will make its debut on bourses today.

GLOBAL CUES
 

SGX Nifty is indicating a flat to positive start for the benchmark indices back home.

Asian stocks advanced on Thursday. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 0.3 per cent as did Japan’s benchmark Nikkei, and Australia was up 0.6 per cent.

As for the US markets, stocks rose on Wednesday, with each of the major indexes closing at a record high. The Dow rose 0.67 per cent to 26,966, the S&P 500 gained 0.77 per cent to 2,996 and the Nasdaq Composite added 0.75 per cent to 8,170.23.

In the commodities market, oil prices slipped on Thursday. Brent crude futures traded down 0.4 per cent at $63.58 per barrel, while US crude futures fetched $57.15 per barrel, down 0.3 per cent.