Indian equity benchmarks witnessed respite after 3-day losing run and gained over half a percent on Friday lifted by IT, Telecom and TECK stocks, and robust Q1 results. After the gap-up start, key gauges hovered in a band throughout the session, as traders took encouragement with the finance ministry's report stating that India's improved monsoon performance, continued expansion in manufacturing, and vigorous capital expenditure spending by the public and private sectors augur well for macroeconomic stability and growth during FY24.  Some optimism also came as S&P Global report said India can become a $6.7 trillion economy by 2031, from $3.4 trillion currently, if the country clocks an average growth of 6.7 per cent for 7 years. Traders also took a note of Chief Economic Advisor (CEA) V Anantha Nageswaran's statement that India needs to focus on the manufacturing sector to achieve sustained growth of 7-7.5 per cent until 2030. He also said that manufacturing should be a key growth area given the country's comparative advantage in terms of skilled labour, improved physical infrastructure, well-established industrial ecosystem and large domestic market. Sentiments remained up-beat in late afternoon deals, as traders were optimistic after Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that the reforms brought in India since 2014 have enabled decentralisation of planning in India, which enabled States to set ambitious development targets and perform to their potential. Additional support also came after private report stated that foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) bought Indian shares worth 466.18 billion rupees ($5.63 billion) on a net basis in July, data from the National Securities Depository (NSDL). This is the highest monthly FPI inflows since August 2022. Besides, the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation received a total contribution of Rs 64885.60 crore during 2022-23, the highest ever under its Employees' Pension Scheme. Finally, the BSE Sensex rose 480.57 points or 0.74% to 65,721.25 and the CNX Nifty was up by 135.35 points or 0.70% to 19,517.00.

The US markets ended a volatile trading session in red on Friday after the Labor Department released a report showing employment in the U.S. increased by less than expected in the month of July. The report said non-farm payroll employment climbed by 187,000 jobs in July after rising by a downwardly revised by 185,000 jobs in June. Street had expected employment to jump by 200,000 jobs compared to the addition of 209,000 jobs originally reported for the previous month. Meanwhile, the Labor Department said the unemployment rate edged down to 3.5 percent in July from 3.6 percent in June. Street had expected the unemployment rate to remain unchanged. The Labor Department also said average hourly employee earnings increased by $0.14 or 0.4 percent to $33.74 in July. Annual wage growth came in at 4.4 percent in July, unchanged from June. Street had expected the pace of growth to slow to 4.2 percent. On the sectoral front, Tobacco stocks showed a significant move to the downside, dragging the NYSE Arca Tobacco Index down by 2.6 percent. Considerable weakness also emerged among utilities stocks, as reflected by the 1.2 percent drop by the Dow Jones Utility Average. Meanwhile, telecom stocks held on to substantial gains, resulting in a 9.4 percent spike by the NYSE Arca North American Telecom Index. In stock specific developments, shares of Amazon (AMZN) moved sharply higher after the online retail giant reported better than expected second quarter and provided upbeat revenue guidance for the current quarter. On the other hand, shares of Apple (AAPL) saw notable weakness after the tech giant reported fiscal third quarter earnings that beat analyst estimates but a continued decrease in revenues.

Magnifying their previous session's gains, crude oil futures ended higher on Friday after top producers Saudi Arabia and Russia extended supply cuts through September, adding to undersupply concerns. Saudi Arabia on Thursday said it would extend its voluntary oil output cut of 1 million barrels per day for a third month to include September. Oil prices were also supported by a weak dollar. The dollar drifted lower after data showing a smaller than expected increase in U.S. non-farm payroll employment in the month of July raised expectations the Federal Reserve will soon end its interest-rate hiking cycle. Meanwhile, data released by Baker Hughes said the total number of active drilling rigs in the United States fell by 5 to 659 this week. Benchmark crude oil futures for September delivery rose $1.27 or about 1.5 percent to settle at $82.82 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude for October delivery surged $0.86 or 1.01 percent to settle at $86.00 a barrel on London's Intercontinental Exchange.

Rupee settled lower against dollar on Friday weighed down by safe-haven dollar demand and higher crude oil prices. Foreign fund outflows also weighed on the local unit. Investors overlooked finance ministry's statement that growth momentum gathered in the January-March quarter will be sustained in the April-June quarter of the current financial year amid the strengthening of the current account balance. Meanwhile, S&P Global report said India can become a $6.7 trillion economy by 2031, from $3.4 trillion currently, if the country clocks an average growth of 6.7 per cent for 7 years. On the global front, the pound held steady just above a five-week low on Friday as traders continued to process the previous day's 25 basis point Bank of England rate hike, and ahead of crucial U.S. jobs data. Finally, the rupee ended at 82.82 (Provisional), weaker by 8 paise from its previous close of 82.74 on Thursday.

The FIIs as per Friday's data were net buyers in equity segment, while they were net sellers in debt segment. In equity segment, the gross buying was of Rs 11524.83 crore against gross selling of Rs 11308.19 crore, while in the debt segment, the gross purchase was of Rs 616.56 crore with gross sales of Rs 782.60 crore. Besides, in the hybrid segment, the gross buying was of Rs 5.38 crore against gross selling of Rs 31.33 crore.

The US markets ended lower on Friday as a mixed U.S. jobs report kept investors guessing on the Fed policy outlook. Asian markets are trading mixed on Monday as investors looked ahead to the release of U.S. inflation data as well as China's inflation and trade figures this week for direction. Indian markets snapped their three-day losing streak on Friday, recovering from the blow seen across global equities due to credit rating downgrade of the US by Fitch. Today, markets are likely to get cautious start with focus on the upcoming RBI policy amid mixed moves across global markets. There are expectations that the Reserve Bank is likely to continue with the pause on the key interest rate at its upcoming monetary policy review, as concerns on the inflation front and keeping the borrowing cost stable to maintain the economic growth momentum persist. The RBI Governor-headed six-member Monetary Policy Committee's (MPC) meeting is scheduled on August 8-10. The policy decision will be announced on August 10 by Governor Shaktikanta Das. There will be some cautiousness as latest data from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) showed that foreign exchange reserves fell $3.2 billion to $603.9 billion in the week ended July 28. Reserves have fallen for the second straight week after hitting their highest in over a year in the week ended July 14. However, some support may come as K V Kamath, chairman of the National Bank for Financing Infrastructure and Development (NaBFID), expressed his confidence in India's potential to achieve the $5-trillion economy target within 18 months. Meanwhile, the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) in a late-night decision on Friday announced that it has decided to delay the licensing mandate for the import of laptops, tablets and personal computers till November 1, 2023. Import consignments can be cleared till 31.10.2023 without a license for restricted imports. There will be some reaction in pharma stocks as the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) extended the deadline for implementing the Track and Trace system for pharmaceutical and drug exports until 1 February 2024. The extension applies to both Small Scale Industries (SSI) and non-SSI manufactured drugs. Meanwhile, Adani Ports, BEML, Biocon, Coal India, DLF, Grasim Industries, Hindalco, IRCTC, NHPC, NMDC, Oil India, ONGC, Tata Chemicals and Zee Entertainment Enterprises are among the top companies due to unveil their quarterly earnings this week.

Support and Resistance: NSE (Nifty) and BSE (Sensex)

Nifty Top volumes

• State Bank of India has reported over 2-fold jump in its consolidated net profit at Rs 18735.95 crore for Q1FY24 as compared to Rs 7528.25 crore for Q1FY23. 
• Axis Bank has partnered with Kiwi, the revolutionary credit on UPI platform to bolster Credit on UPI accessibility on RuPay credit cards. 
• Tata Motors has launched CNG variant of its micro SUV Punch priced between Rs 7.1 lakh and Rs 9.68 lakh (ex-showroom, Delhi). 
• Mahindra & Mahindra has reported 56.05% rise in consolidated net profit at Rs 3,683.87 crore for Q1FY24 as compared to Rs 2,360.70 crore for Q1FY23.