In a volatile trade, Indian equity benchmarks erased most of their initial gains and ended flat with a positive bias on Monday as investors preferred to stay on the sidelines ahead of the start of quarterly earnings. Markets made slightly positive start as traders took some support with Commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal's statement that India's merchandise exports touched $447 billion in FY23, up from $442 billion in FY22. This would translate into a 6 per cent year-on-year jump in exports. But, markets soon erased initial gains to trade flat as some concerns came with the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) statistical supplement showing that India's foreign exchange reserves retreated from more than eight-month highs to $578.45 billion as of the week ended March 31. That is a decrease of around $380 million from the previous week. However, key gauges regained traction in afternoon deals, taking support from IMF Working Paper stating that India has built a world-class digital public infrastructure which is transforming lives and economy and can be a lesson for many countries to follow. Traders also took a note of Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharama's statement that the inflation has been kept at six per cent or below despite adverse circumstances as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine conflict. But, markets failed to hold gains and ended flat as traders restrained from taking any long position ahead of upcoming macro-economic data industrial growth, retail & wholesale inflation and exports & imports for more directional cues. Finally, the BSE Sensex rose 13.54 points or 0.02% to 59,846.51 and the CNX Nifty was up by 24.90 points or 0.14% to 17,624.05.

The US markets ended mostly higher on Monday amid traders looked ahead to key inflation data later in the week along with reports on retail sales and industrial production as well as the minutes of the latest Federal Reserve meeting. However, the early weakness on markets partly reflected ongoing concerns about the outlook for the economy and interest rates following last week's monthly jobs report. The Labor Department's closely watched report, which was released while the markets were closed for Good Friday, showed employment in the U.S. increased roughly in line with street estimates in the month of March. The report said non-farm payroll employment climbed by 236,000 jobs in March after jumping by an upwardly revised 326,000 jobs in February. Street had expected employment to rise by about 240,000 jobs compared to the addition of 311,000 jobs originally reported for the previous month. Meanwhile, the Labor Department said the unemployment rate edged down to 3.5 percent in March from 3.6 percent in February. The unemployment rate was expected to be unchanged. On the sectoral front, Steel stocks turned in some of the market's best performances on the day, resulting in a 2.3 percent surge by the NYSE Arca Steel Index. Significant strength also emerged among computer hardware stocks, as reflected by the 2.0 percent jump by the NYSE Arca Computer Hardware Index. Semiconductor, transportation and natural gas stocks also saw notable strength, while weakness remained visible among gold and biotechnology stocks.

Crude oil futures ended lower on Monday as concerns about the global economic outlook overshadowed worries about supplies. The U.S. dollar rose after U.S. jobs data pointed to a tight labor market, heightening expectations of another Federal Reserve rate hike. Dollar strength makes oil more expensive for other currency holders and can weigh on demand. Benchmark crude oil futures for May delivery fell $0.96 or nearly 1.2 percent to settle at $79.74 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude for June delivery dropped $0.94 or 1.1 percent to settle at $84.18 a barrel on London's Intercontinental Exchange. 

Indian rupee ended higher against dollar on Monday, tracking a weak American currency in the overseas market. Traders got support as Commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal said India's merchandise exports touched $447 billion in FY23, up from $442 billion in FY22, though the final data is awaited. This would translate into a 6 per cent year-on-year jump in exports. Traders overlooked Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) statistical supplement showing that India's foreign exchange reserves retreated from more than eight-month highs to $578.45 billion as of the week ended March 31. On the global front, yen sank against major peers on Monday after U.S. payrolls data bolstered the case for further Federal Reserve rate hikes, highlighting a growing disparity with Japan where the central bank continues to pin the benchmark yield near zero. Finally, the rupee ended at 81.97 (Provisional), stronger by 5 paise from its previous close of 82.02 on Thursday.

The FIIs as per Monday's data were net buyers in both equity and debt segments. In equity segment, the gross buying was of Rs 5646.74 crore against gross selling of Rs 5192.48 crore, while in the debt segment, the gross purchase was of Rs 770.93 crore against gross selling of Rs 462.00 crore. Besides, in the hybrid segment, the gross buying was of Rs 5.83 crore against gross selling of Rs 9.16 crore.

The US markets ended mostly higher on Monday as investors digested Friday's employment report and prepared for an eventful week of inflation data and bank earnings. Asian markets are trading mostly in green on Tuesday as the Bank of Korea held interest rates at 3.5 percent, in line with expectations. Indian markets ended a range-bound session with modest gains on Monday and extended their winning streak for a sixth straight session, supported by buying seen in the auto, power, oil & gas and real estate stocks. Today, domestic indices are likely to get flat-to-positive start tracking gains in global markets. Foreign fund inflows likely to aid domestic sentiments. National Stock Exchange's provisional data showed foreign institutional investors (FII) bought shares worth Rs 882.52 crore on April 10. Sentiments will get a boost as Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) are being signed in a much faster way nowadays and also informed that the India-UK FTA negotiations are going on as we speak. Some support will come with a private report stating that the stance of the policy continues to favour withdrawal of accommodation, clearly implying that the RBI will be back on a rate hiking track if there are any nasty surprises to the anticipated softening trend of Headline CPI. Traders will be getting some encouragement as India Ratings said the share of combined capex of states in the GDP may improve marginally to 2.8% in FY24 from 2.5% in FY23. However, traders may be concerned as a private weather forecaster predicted below normal monsoon in India in 2023 on account of El Nino conditions. The monsoon rainfall is expected to the tune of 94%, with an error margin of 5%, of the long period average (LPA) of 868.6mm. Meanwhile, traders and millers of pulses have requested the government to increase the minimum support price (MSP) of pigeon peas (tur dal) to encourage the farmers to grow the pulse. IT stocks would be in focus as investors await earnings from tech giants. TCS will unveil its quarterly earnings on April 12, whereas Infosys' earnings are due on April 13. There will be some reaction in real estate stocks with a private report that realty developers in the March quarter of financial year 2022-23 (Q4FY23) posted robust sales numbers.

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

Nifty Top volumes

• Oil and Natural Gas Corporation has received an approval for the acquisition of 1,15,20,000 equity shares of Mangalore SEZ from IL&FS at total consideration of Rs 40.32 crore. 
• Titan Company has recorded another quarter of healthy double-digit growth across all of its key businesses. 
• GAIL Gas -- wholly owned subsidiary of GAIL (India) -- has reduced CNG and PNG Prices with effect from April 9, 2023. 
• L&T's Hydrocarbon business -- L&T Energy Hydrocarbon has secured an order under its AdVENT business vertical.