Market Live Updates Today: Trends on SGX Nifty indicate a flat opening for the broader index in India with a gain of 26 points
Equity indices settle marginally low
According to pivot charts, the key support levels for the Nifty are placed at 17,088.4 and 16,980.1. If the index moves higher, the key resistance levels to watch out for will be 17,397.4 and 17,598.1.
Wall Street's major indexes closed lower on Friday, with the Nasdaq leading the declines as investors bet that a strong jobs report would not slow the Federal Reserve's withdrawal of support while they grappled with uncertainty around the Omicron coronavirus variant.
US Markets
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 59.71 points, or 0.17 percent, to 34,580.08, the S&P 500 lost 38.67 points, or 0.84 percent, to 4,538.43 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 295.85 points, or 1.92 percent, to 15,085.47.
Asian Markets
Asian share markets got off to a cautious start on Monday as Omicron emerged in more countries and investors faced a week-long wait for key U.S. inflation figures that could settle the course of interest rates.
A mixed U.S. jobs report did little to shake market expectations of a more aggressive tightening by the Federal Reserve, and the consumer price report due on Friday is likely to make the case for an early tapering.
Omicron remained a concern as the variant spread to about one-third of U.S. states, although there were reports from South Africa that the cases there had mild symptoms.
Early trade was sluggish as MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan inched down 0.2 percent.
Japan's Nikkei eased 0.7 percent even as the government considered raising its economic growth forecast to account for a record $490 billion stimulus package.
SGX Nifty
Trends on SGX Nifty indicate a flat opening for the broader index in India with a gain of 26 points. The Nifty futures were trading around 17,261 levels on the Singaporean exchange.
Metro Brands IPO to open on Dec 10 and close on Dec 14
Shriram Properties sets IPO price band at Rs 113-118/share
Shriram Properties has fixed a price band of Rs 113-118 a share for its Rs 600-crore initial share-sale, which will open for public subscription on December 8. The three-day initial public offering (IPO) will conclude on December 10, the bidding for anchor investors will open on December 7, according to the company. The firm has reduced its offer for sale size to Rs 350 crore from Rs 550 crore earlier. Now, the IPO size will be Rs 600 crore against Rs 800 crore earlier.
Anand Rathi Wealth IPO subscribed nearly 4 times so far on final day
Inox Green Energy approves fund raising via IPO: Agencies
Plans to raise up to Rs 500 cr via fresh issue in IPO
Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) net sold shares worth Rs 3,356.17 crore, while domestic institutional investors (DIIs) net bought shares worth Rs 1,648.79 crore in the Indian equity market on December 3, as per provisional data available on the NSE.
Federal Reserve policymakers look likely to accelerate the winding down of their bond-buying program when they meet later this month as they respond to a tightening labor market and move to open the door to earlier rate hikes than they had projected.
US employers added 210,000 jobs last month, a U.S. Labor Department report showed Friday, less than half of what economists had expected. But average hourly earnings over the past 12 months rose 4.8%, the unemployment rate dropped to 4.2%, and the workforce grew by the most in 13 months. Analysts said they believe the moderate job gains understate labor market strength and that they would likely be revised upward.
Global economic growth projections from the International Monetary Fund will likely be downgraded due to the emergence of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus, IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said on Friday.
"A new variant that may spread very rapidly can dent confidence, and in that sense, we are likely to see some downgrades of our October projections for global growth," Georgieva said.
Amid a global scare due to the new coronavirus variant Omicron, the RBI is likely to maintain status quo in its upcoming monetary policy and wait for a more opportune time to calibrate benchmark interest rate in order to promote growth without sacrificing the main objective of containing inflation. The Reserve Bank Governor-headed Monetary Policy Committee is scheduled to meet during December 6-8. The decision of the rate setting panel would be announced on December 8. The central bank had kept the benchmark policy rate unchanged in October.
"…we believe the talks of a reverse repo rate hike in the MPC meeting may be premature as RBI has been largely able to narrow the corridor without the noise of rate hikes and ensuing market cacophony," said an SBI research report. According to it, the RBI is not obliged to act on reverse repo rate only in MPC. "Also, change in reverse repo rate is an unconventional policy tool that the RBI has effectively deployed during crisis when it moved to a floor instead of the corridor," it added.
A Kotak Economic Research report said with uncertainty around the new Covid variant, the RBI would possibly wait for some clarity before moving decisively on rates. "We maintain our call for a reverse repo rate hike in February with the December meeting remaining a close call. We expect the RBI to continue on its path of normalisation with the reverse repo rate hike in February policy and repo rate hike in mid-2022-23," it said.
Goldman Sachs plans to invest $2 billion to $3 billion in India’s real estate over the next three years, people familiar with the matter said. The move is part of the global investment bank’s plan to put in $30 billion in alternative investments in Asia over the next five years.
Goldman Sachs is looking to come back to India’s property market amid a revival in residential real estate after going slow on this sector in the past decade following the global financial crisis. Goldman has about $2.5 billion of real estate investment in China.
The country’s foreign exchange reserves declined by $2.713 billion to $637.687 billion in the week to November 26, RBI data showed. In the previous week ended November 19, the reserves had increased by $289 million to $640.401 billion. It touched a lifetime high of $642.453 billion in the week ended September 3, 2021.
In the reporting week ended November 26, the dip in foreign exchange reserves was on account of a decline in foreign currency assets (FCA), a major component of the overall reserves and gold reserves, Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) weekly data released on Friday showed.