Market Ahead, May 24: Top factors that are likely to guide markets today

Sentiment around Narendra Modi led-National Democratic Alliance (NDA)’s win in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections will continue to influence markets on Friday. On Thursday, the NDA stumped the opposition by winning 350 of 543 seats.

Apart from this, the next batch of March quarter results, crude oil prices, movement of rupee against the US dollar and trade tensions between the US and China will also be on the investors' radar. 

MARKETS ON THURSDAY

NDA’s return supported the markets to hit record highs in the intra-day trade on Thursday with the BSE S&P Sensex surpassing 40,000 levels and the broader Nifty50 scaling 12,000-mark. The indices, however, closed at 38,811 and 11,657 levels, slipping 299 and 81 points, respectively. The rupee closed at Rs 70.02 per US dollar, down 36 paise. 

CORPORATE RESULTS

About 170 companies are slated to announce their Q4 numbers today including Ashok Leyland, Bata, and Indraprastha Gas.

GLOBAL CUES

Asian shares were near four-month low on weak global cues. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan stood flat, down 0.9 per cent so far in the week.

On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 286 points to close at 25,490 levels while the S&P 500 lost 34 points to settle at 2,822 levels during the overnight trade on Thursday. The Nasdaq dropped 123 points to settle at 7628 levels.

In commodities, oil prices stabilised amid OPEC supply cuts and tensions in the Middle East.