Markets to make a mildly positive start of another truncated week

The Indian markets suffered severe setback in the last session with major benchmarks deposing over half a percent, mainly on jeo-political worries. Today, the start of another truncated but data heavy week is likely to be mildly in green tailing positive global cues, now all eyes will be on corporate earnings season, commencing this week, with IT major Infosys scheduled to announce its January-March 2017 earnings on Thursday. Traders will be getting some support with CII Business Confidence Index released during the weekend, which said that India Inc.'s perceptions about the state of the economy slid in the last quarter of 2016-17, yet industry’s confidence levels about the future have peaked to their highest level in more than six years. IT sector may get some support with Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s statement that the government is holding talks with the US administration over the H1-B visa issue and also working with the industries. She said that the government is in close touch with those industries which have a stake and which need to be assisted during this transitional phase.

The US markets ended modestly in red in the last session on reports that employment in the US rose by much less than anticipated in the month of March. Though, despite the weaker than expected job growth, the unemployment rate fell to 4.5 percent in March from 4.7 percent in February. The Asian markets have made a mixed start with some indices trading in green led by the Japanese market after yen dropped against dollar, as investors weighed the impact of the American jobs report and the path for U.S. monetary policy tightening.

Back home, Indian equity markets concluded the week on a daunting note with the benchmark indices suffering nasty lacerations of over half a percent in Friday's session. The frontline gauges failed to showcase any kind of resilience through the session and kept drifting to lower levels, to eventually settle around the psychological 9,200 (Nifty) and 29,700 (Sensex) levels. Market participants turned skittish after the United States launched cruise missiles against an air base in Syria, raising the risk of confrontation with Syrian backers Russia and Iran. Facing his biggest foreign policy crisis since taking office in January, Trump took the toughest direct U.S. action yet in Syria's six-year-old civil war. On the domestic front, sentiments were undermined as Reserve Bank of India (RBI) projected retail inflation to increase to 5% in the second half of the current fiscal citing risks of El Nino impacting the monsoon and one-off effects of the Goods and Services Tax. The central bank also said that a prominent risk could emanate from managing the implementation of the allowances recommended by the 7th Central Pay Commission (CPC). Investors got nervous as rupee surged to 20-month high, by extending gains to as much as 64.15 per dollar, it’s highest since August 2015. A firm rupee adversely affects operating profit margins of IT firms as the sector derives a lion's share of revenue from exports, while it also make the country's other major exporters less competitive. Meanwhile, telecom stocks Bharti Airtel and Idea Cellular rose after rival Reliance Jio Infocomm, a unit of Reliance Industries, withdrew its summer surprise offer to subscribers. Further, Avenue Supermarts, which runs a chain of retail stores under the D-Mart brand, rallied after rating agency CRISIL upgraded its ratings on the bank facilities of the company. Finally, the BSE Sensex decreased 220.73 points or 0.74% to 29706.61, while the CNX Nifty was down by 63.65 points or 0.69% to 9,198.30.