Snapping their seven-days winning run, Indian equity benchmarks took a breather on Thursday and ended marginally lower, owing to some profit-taking ahead of the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) policy outcome tomorrow. Weakness in Asian peers also weighed on the sentiment. Indian equities began the weekly expiry day on a tepid note amid selling pressure from foreign institutional investors. Foreign institutional investors sold shares worth Rs 79.88 crore on Wednesday, according to exchange data. Some concern came after Moody's Investors Service issued a negative outlook for global banks in 2024, attributing the negativity to the repercussions of central banks' tightening of monetary policies. However, markets managed to cut some losses in late morning deals, as traders got some support after Industry chamber CII expects the country's economy to grow at 6.8% in the current fiscal and accelerate to 7 per cent in 2024-25, driven by the government's continued focus on infrastructure development and promotion of ease of doing business. Some support also came with Union Minister of State for Commerce and Industry, Som Parkash's statement that the Startup India initiative was launched by the Government to build a strong ecosystem for nurturing innovation, startups and encouraging investments in the startup ecosystem of the country. Besides, NITI Aayog vice chairman Suman Bery said that India has potential to grow at 8 per cent as the country is labour-rich with enough institutional maturity of a functioning democracy.  But, markets failed to erase all the losses and ended marginally in red as some pessimism remained among traders amid a private report stating that hiring activity for white-collar jobs witnessed a 12 per cent on-year decline during October-November largely due to fall in recruitment trends in IT-Software, telecom and education sectors. Finally, the BSE Sensex fell 132.04 points or 0.19% to 69,521.69 and the CNX Nifty was down by 36.55 points or 0.17% to 20,901.15.

The US markets ended higher on Thursday with Nasdaq settling over one percent higher. The strength on markets partly reflected ongoing optimism about the outlook for interest rates ahead of the release of the Labor Department's closely watched monthly jobs report on Friday. Street currently expect employment to increase by 180,000 jobs in November after rising by 150,000 jobs in October, while the unemployment rate is expected to hold at 3.9 percent. The jobs report could have a significant impact on the outlook for interest rates ahead of the Federal Reserve's monetary policy meeting next week. While the Fed is widely expected to leave interest rates unchanged, traders will be looking to the jobs data to provide further evidence the central bank could cut rates as soon as March 2024. On the sectoral front, Semiconductor stocks showed a substantial move to the upside on the day, driving the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index up by 2.8 percent. Chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) moved sharply higher after Meta (META), Microsoft (MSFT) and OpenAI said they will use the company's newest AI chip, the Instinct MI300X. Substantial strength was also visible among airline stocks, with the NYSE Arca Airline Index soaring by 2.6 percent to its best closing level in almost four months. On the economic data front, the Labor Department released a report showing a slight uptick in first-time claims for U.S. unemployment benefits in the week ended December 2nd. The report said initial jobless claims ticked up to 220,000, an increase of 1,000 from the previous week's revised level of 219,000.

Crude oil futures ended slightly lower on Thursday on lingering uncertainty about the outlook for energy demand due to global economic slowdown. Data released by the General Administration of Customs today showed China's crude imports dropped to their weakest in four months in November, trumping bullish demand forecasts from leading industry participants. Crude oil pieces also fall on data recently showing a larger than expected increase in U.S. gasoline stockpiles last week, and skepticism over OPEC+'s recently announced voluntary supply cuts due to fractures within the alliance. Benchmark crude oil futures for January delivery fell $0.04 or about 0.05 percent to settle at $69.34 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude for February delivery lost $0.25 or about 0.33 percent to settle at $74.05 a barrel on London's Intercontinental Exchange.

Rupee ended lower on Thursday tracking elevated American currency in the overseas market and a muted trend in domestic equities. Some concern came after Moody's Investors Service issued a negative outlook for global banks in 2024, attributing the negativity to the repercussions of central banks' tightening of monetary policies. Meanwhile, foreign institutional investors sold shares worth Rs 79.88 crore on Wednesday, according to exchange data. Investors overlooked report that NITI Aayog vice chairman Suman Bery said India has potential to grow at 8 per cent as the country is labour-rich with enough institutional maturity of a functioning democracy. On the global front, the pound edged up against the dollar and the euro on Thursday, but sank against the yen, as investor expectations mounted that the Bank of Japan could signal an end to its ultra-easy monetary policy next week. Finally, the rupee ended at 83.36 (Provisional), weaker by 4 paise from its previous close of 83.32 on Wednesday.

The FIIs as per Thursday'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 12029.91 crore against gross selling of Rs 11829.63 crore, while in the debt segment, the gross purchase was of Rs 297.66 crore with gross sales of Rs 1492.75 crore. Besides, in the hybrid segment, the gross buying was of Rs 22.05 crore against gross selling of Rs 18.37 crore.

The US markets ended higher on Thursday after weekly jobless claims data indicated cooling of the U.S. labour market, aiding expectations of a Federal Reserve rate cut by March 2024. Asian markets are trading mostly in green on Friday tracking overnight gains on Wall Street. Indian markets snapped their seven-day winning run and ended modestly lower on Thursday as investors opted to book some profits after recent sharp gains on strong GDP numbers and BJP's win in assembly elections. Today, markets are likely to get a positive start tracking firm global cues and ahead of Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) monetary policy decision later in the day. There are expectations that the RBI is likely to maintain status quo on the key repo rate, holding it steady at 6.5 per cent. Sentiments will get a boost as Niti Aayog vice chairman Suman Bery said India has the potential to grow at 8 per cent as the country is labour-rich with enough institutional maturity of a functioning democracy. Traders may take note of Union minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar's statement that the digital economy will contribute 20 per cent of India's gross domestic product (GDP) by 2026. However, foreign fund outflows may dent domestic sentiments. According to provisional data from the National Stock Exchange, foreign institutional investors (FIIs) sold Indian shares worth Rs 1,564 crore on a net basis on Thursday. There may be some cautiousness with a private report that India's retail inflation likely picked up in November due to higher food prices after declining for three months, bringing it closer to the upper end of the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) 2 percent-6 percent target range. Meanwhile, rate sensitive banks, auto and realty stocks will be in focus today. Also, private sector banks have increased their share in term deposits to 35 per cent in the second quarter (Q2) of 2023-24 (FY24), up from 32 per cent in the fourth quarter (Q4) of 2022-23 (FY23). There will be some reaction in insurance industry stocks with a report that the new business premium of life insurance companies declined by 25.28 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y) in November 2023 as the premiums of both the state-owned Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) and private insurers saw a decline.

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

Nifty Top volumes

• Tata Motors and HDFC Bank have entered into a Memorandum of Understanding to provide attractive digital financing solutions for its commercial vehicle customers.
• Tech Mahindra has launched a new business unit Navixus, within Tech Mahindra Business Process Services.
• Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone is planning to raise funds through the issue of NCDs or issue or renew preference shares on a private placement or preferential basis.
• Mahindra & Mahindra is all set to hike prices of its passenger and commercial vehicle model range from January next year.