Indian equity benchmarks continued volatile streak for a third straight day and ended marginally lower on Friday as investors assessed developments around the Ukraine crisis and US Federal Reserve's policy tightening. Markets made weak start, as traders remained cautious with Crisil Ratings' report stated that since the introduction of new asset quality norms last November that brought in shadow banks and housing financiers on par with banks, housing finance companies' gross bad loans have gone up by 70 basis points (bps) even as their portfolio quality has improved. However, key indices trimmed losses and were trading in green in afternoon deals, as traders found some solace with rating agency Icra stating that the government's ambitious production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme will look to unlock manufacturing capacity as well as support in attracting about Rs 4 lakh crore of capital expenditure over the next five years. Some support also came as Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has urged multilateral financial institutions to increase funding especially to low and middle income countries to prepare them to deal with pandemic situations in the future. She said that low income and middle income countries do not have enough resources and need global support to face challenges. But, key gauges failed to hold gains and ended lower as some pessimism remained among trader with SBI's research report- Ecowrap stated that country's gross domestic product (GDP) is likely to grow at 5.8 per cent in the third quarter of fiscal 2022. It stated As per SBI Nowcasting Model, the forecasted GDP growth for Q3 FY22 would be 5.8%, with a downward bias. The full year (FY22) GDP growth is now revised downwards to 8.8% from our earlier estimate of 9.3%. Finally, the BSE Sensex fell 59.04 points or 0.10% to 57,832.97 and the CNX Nifty was down by 28.30 points or 0.16% to 17,276.30.

The US markets extended their previous session losses and ended sharply lower on Friday with the Dow ending the session at its lowest closing level since early December. The sustained weakness on Wall Street came amid lingering geopolitical concerns as the Ukrainian government and Russian state-controlled media continued to exchanged accusations of cease-fire violations in the eastern part of the country. Reports that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken have agreed to meet in Europe next week had eased concerns about an imminent Russian invasion of Ukraine, but traders remain wary. Traders may have been reluctant to hold significant positions going into the long weekend due to the Presidents Day holiday on Monday. Uncertainty about the outlook for monetary policy also continued to weigh on the markets ahead of an anticipated interest rate hike by the Federal Reserve next month. On the economic data front, the National Association of Realtors released a report unexpectedly showing a sharp increase in existing home sales in the month of January. NAR said existing home sales spiked 6.7 percent to an annual rate of 6.50 million in January after tumbling 3.8 percent to a revised rate of 6.09 million in December. The substantial rebound surprised market participants, who had expected existing home sales to slump by 1.3 percent to a rate of 6.10 million from the 6.18 million originally reported for the previous month. With the unexpected jump, existing home sales reached their highest annual rate since hitting 6.65 million in January of 2021. Meanwhile, a separate report released by the Conference Board showed an unexpected pullback by its reading on leading U.S. economic indicators. The Conference Board said its leading economic index fell by 0.3 percent in January after climbing by a downwardly revised 0.7 percent in December. The dip came as a surprise to street, who had expected the index to rise by 0.3 percent compared to the 0.8 percent increase originally reported for the previous month.

Crude oil futures ended lower on Friday amid slightly easing Ukraine tensions and signs of negotiations to restore the Iran nuclear deal. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov are expected to meet next week in Europe over Ukraine and European security issues. A report from Baker Hughes said the number of active U.S. rigs drilling for oil rose by 4 to 520 this week. The report said the total active rigs, including those drilling for natural gas, climbed by 10 to 645. Benchmark crude oil futures for March delivery fell $0.69 or 0.36 percent to settle at $91.07 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. However, Brent crude for April delivery rose $0.57 or 0.6 percent to settle at $93.54 a barrel on London's Intercontinental Exchange.

Rupee ended significantly higher against dollar on fresh selling of dollar by bankers and exporters on Friday, on hopes of a diplomatic solution to the East-West standoff over Ukraine. The proposed US-Russia talks spurred optimism about the volatile geopolitical situation in Ukraine. Sentiments were also upbeat as Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has urged multilateral financial institutions to increase funding especially to low and middle income countries to prepare them to deal with pandemic situations in the future. She said that low income and middle income countries do not have enough resources and need global support to face challenges. On the global front, Sterling edged higher versus the dollar on Friday but was unchanged versus the euro, helped by better-than-expected UK retail sales numbers. Finally, the rupee ended at 74.66 (Provisional), stronger by 40 paise from its previous close of 75.06 on Thursday.

The FIIs as per Friday's data were net sellers in equity segment and net buyers in debt segment. In equity segment, the gross buying was of Rs 6173.73 crore against gross selling of Rs 6883.75 crore, while in the debt segment, the gross purchase was of Rs 594.88 crore against gross sales of Rs 291.44 crore. Besides, in the hybrid segment, the gross buying was of Rs 46.16 crore against gross selling of Rs 33.74 crore.

The US markets ended lower on Friday on rising worries over escalating Ukraine-Russia tensions and the prospect of a tightened interest rate hike timeline from the Fed in response to decades-high inflation. Asian markets are trading mostly in red on Monday though investors remained hopeful for a diplomatic solution to the Russia-Ukraine standoff. Indian markets ended mildly lower on Friday, as investors remained concerned about the Russia-Ukraine conflict and sooner-than-anticipated hikes in key interest rates. Today, markets are likely to start session on a negative note, amid weakness across global markets as investors remained concerned about the Ukraine-Russia conflict. Traders will be concerned with labour ministry's report that retail inflation for farm workers and rural labourers rose to 5.49 per cent and 5.74 per cent, respectively in January mainly due to higher prices of certain food items. Besides, a private report stated that India's consumer price indexed inflation is expected to moderate in February 2022 from the levels in January. There will be some cautiousness as the RBI data showed the country's foreign exchange reserves declined by $1.763 billion to $630.19 billion in the week ended on February 11. However, some respite may come later in the day as Crisil Research said India's industrial activity is expected to gather pace in the coming months owing to a gradual pick-up in consumption as well as investment demand. It said while there was an improvement in the momentum i.e., sequential or on-month movement of industrial activity in December - likely reflecting some easing of raw material supply disruption - it was not very robust. Some support may also come as revising the outlook on state finances to improving in FY23 from neutral, India Ratings expects the aggregate fiscal deficit of the states to come in at 3.6 per cent of their gross domestic product from 3.5 per cent in FY22 on the back of robust revenue growth. The agency had earlier forecast the fiscal deficit of the states to print in at 4.1 per cent. The upward revision is due to the better-than-expected growth in revenue receipts and higher growth in the nominal GDP in FY22. There will be some buzz in the coal industry stocks as the government plans to implement new technologies and build digital infrastructure to support current and future coal mines operations, a move that would reduce the country's dependency on imports. Telecom companies stocks will be in focus as the government's revenue collection from telecom services will be significantly higher than the projection of Rs 52,806.36 crore made in the union budget after adding the collection from the proposed spectrum auction. There will be some reaction in leather indusrty stocks as Sanjay Leekha Chairman of the Council For Leather Exports (CLE) said the country's leather and footwear exports are expected cross $6 billion (about Rs 44,800 crore) in 2022-23 on account of increasing demand in the US and new markets such as Middle East, Africa and Latin America.

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

Nifty Top volumes

• Bajaj Auto is looking to double the network for its electric scooter Chetak in the coming weeks to cater to the increased demand for the offering. 
• Accelerating its efforts towards offering advanced digitized services to its customers, Hero MotoCorp has inaugurated its new state-of-the-art dealership - Surya Hero in Jaipur, Rajasthan.
• IOC is planning to raise Rs 1500 crore in this regard it has issued 15000, 6.14% Unsecured, Listed, Rated, Taxable, Redeemable, Nonconvertible Debentures (NCDs) (Series - XXI). 
• Infosys has joined Guidewire PartnerConnect as a Consulting alliance member at the Select level for the Americas.