SGX Nifty up 45 points; here's what changed for market while you were sleeping

Asian markets are all up and Nifty futures on Singapore Exchange hinted at a positive start for the domestic indices Friday morning. That said, technical charts are hinting at selling pressure at higher levels. Besides, investors would be a bit cautious ahead of inflation in the US due later on Friday. As such, any upside could be limited. Here's breaking down the pre-market actions:

STATE OF THE MARKETS
SGX Nifty signals a positive start
Nifty futures on Singapore Exchange traded 44.5 points, or 0.29 per cent, higher at 15,458.5 signaling that Dalal Street was headed for a positive start on Friday.

• Tech View: Nifty50 formed a Doji candle on the daily chart, which suggests indecisiveness among traders at higher levels.
• India VIX: The fear gauge shed 4.61 per cent to 19.91 level on Thursday, over its Wednesday's close at 20.87.

Asian markets rise in early trade
Asian Markets cheered in the early session in line with global markets as strong U.S. economic data solidified hopes of continuing recovery. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was up by 0.40 per cent.

• Japan's Nikkei soared 1.95%
• Hong Kong's Hang Seng gained 0.46%
• South Korea's Kospi advanced 0.42%
• Australia's ASX 200 jumped 1.13%
• Shanghai Composite inched up 0.04%

US stocks settled higher
Wall Street stocks finished mostly higher following more signals that the economy is continuing to recover. Investors were encouraged to see that weekly unemployment claims fell to another pandemic low.

• Dow Jones up 0413% to 34,464.64
• The S&P 500 gained 0.12% to 4,200.88
• Nasdaq ended flat, shed 0.01% to 13,736.28

Dollar mixed against major currencies
The dollar index traded in a narrow range, ended with gains on Thursday as the greenback held steady against the euro, lost ground to the British pound, and gained on the Japanese yen. Market attention now turns to U.S. inflation data due on Friday.

• The dollar index gained 0.1% to 90.095.
• Euro dipped 0.08% to $1.2183
• Pound gained 0.58% to $1.4203
• Yen edged 0.11% lower to 109.82 a dollar
• Yuan appreciates to 6.3755 against the greenback

Q4 earnings today
M&M, REC, Ipca Laboratories, Sundaram Finance, Max Healthcare, Glenmark Pharmaceuticals, Aditya Birla Fashion & Retail, Indian Bank, City Union Bank, Sumitomo Chemicals, GMM Pfaudler, Dilip Buildcon, and 3M India are among companies that will announce their March quarter results today.

FPIs sell equities worth Rs 661 crore
Net-net, foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) turned net sellers of domestic stocks to the tune of Rs 660.90 crore, data available with NSE suggested. DIIs, turned net buyers to the tune of Rs 112.38 crore, data suggests.

Oil prices rise in early trade
Oil prices pushed higher, supported by firm US economic data and expectations of a strong rebound in global fuel demand in the third quarter, while concerns eased about the impact of any return of Iranian supplies. Brent crude futures for July gained 16 cents, 0.2 per cent, to $69.62 a barrel, while US West Texas Intermediate crude for July was at $67.17 a barrel, up 32 cents, or 0.5 per cent.

MONEY MARKETS
Rupee: The rupee advanced by 17 paise to climb to over a two-month high of 72.60 against the US dollar on Thursday, tracking upbeat Asian peers and positive domestic equities.

10-year bond: India's 10-year bond yield climbed 0.25 per cent to 5.99 after trading in 5.97 - 6.00 range.


DATA/EVENTS TO WATCH

• Q4 Earnings: M&M | Glenmark | Ipca Lab | Deepak Fertliser | NCC | REC | Ujjivan
• India Foreign Exchange Reserves 21/May (05:00 pm)
• Japan Unemployment Rate April (05:00 am)
• Euro Area Consumer Confidence Final May (02:30 pm)
• Euro Area Economic Sentiment May (02:30 pm)
• US Personal Income/Spending MoM April (06:00 pm)
• US President's FY2022 Budget (11:30 pm)

MACROS
Covid norms to stay till June 30
The Centre on Thursday directed states and union territories to continue the ongoing COVID-19 guidelines till June 30 and asked them to go for intensive and local containment measures in districts with a high number of cases to check the spread of the deadly disease. In a fresh order, Union Home Secretary Ajay Bhalla said strict implementation of containment and other measures has led to a declining trend in the number of new and active cases, across states and union territories, barring some areas in the southern and northeastern regions.

Twitter, govt at loggerheads
Twitter on Thursday said it was concerned by recent events regarding its employees in India and the potential threat to freedom of expression. While it will strive to comply with India's new social media intermediary guidelines, the microblogging platform said it will not compromise on its principles of transparency and the protection for freedom of expression and privacy of its users under the rule of law.

FMCG firms' online sales surge 50%
Share of online channels in consumer goods companies’ overall sales has surged by more than 50% since April as a severe second wave of Covid-19 and lockdowns in many states made scores of consumers stay put at home and click to buy. Top fast moving consumer goods companies said growth in online sales in April and May compared to March was nearly as much as the growth in the entire last fiscal, in spite of a spike in adoption of ecommerce shopping amid the pandemic in FY21.

RBI study unravels factors behind IPO listing gain
A RBI study shows gains from the newly-listed stocks are mainly linked to high subscriptions, overriding other stock characteristics such as age, share-sale size, leverage, growth, profitability and valuation indicators of the company. It said the coefficient of oversubscription to be positive and highly significant in explaining the IPOs’ initial returns and found a positive and significant relationship between lagged Sensex returns and IPO returns, suggesting that IPOs issued during the boom period are relatively more underpriced.

Crypto exchanges knock SC door, again
Cryptocurrency exchanges are set to approach the Supreme Court to seek direction on whether RBI can direct banks to stop dealing with them, despite an earlier ruling by the apex court quashing RBI’s order to ban cryptocurrencies. This comes after RBI through an “informal” diktat asked banks to stop dealing with cryptocurrency exchanges.