Extending the winning streak to a third straight session, Indian equity benchmarks ended first trading session of FY25 on a strong note on Monday, led by buying in Realty, Telecom and Metal stocks. The markets made a gap up opening and traded higher thereafter as traders took support with Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman's statement that India's gross domestic product (GDP) is on track to grow by 8 percent or more in the quarter ended March 31. Some support also came as growth in output of the eight key infrastructure sectors - known as the core sector - rose to a three-month high of 6.7 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y) in February from 4.1 per cent in January. Additional support came in with a report that foreign investors made a strong return by injecting more than Rs 2 lakh crore into Indian equities in 2023-24, driven by optimism surrounding the country's robust economic fundamentals amidst a challenging global environment. A firm trade continued in markets in late afternoon deals, taking support from India's executive director at International Monetary Fund (IMF) Krishnamurthy Venkata Subramanian's statement that Indian economy can grow at 8 per cent till 2047, if the country can redouble the good policies that it has implemented over the last 10 years and accelerate reforms. Some optimism also came with provisional data from the NSE showing that foreign institutional investors (FIIs) net bought shares worth Rs 188.31 crore on March 28. Traders also took support with domestic rating agency Care Ratings' report that the gross non-performing assets (GNPAs) of the Indian banking system are set to improve further to up to 2.1 per cent by the end of FY25. It mentioned GNPAs are likely to come at 2.5-2.7 per cent in FY24 and will improve further to 2.1-2.4 per cent by the end of FY25. Finally, the BSE Sensex rose 363.20 points or 0.49% to 74,014.55 and the CNX Nifty was up by 135.10 points or 0.61% to 22,462.00.

The US markets ended mostly in red on Monday as traders expressed uncertainty about whether inflation is slowing quickly enough to guarantee the interest rate cuts expected by the Fed. The subsequent pullback by stocks came as a report from the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) unexpectedly showing modest growth in U.S. manufacturing activity in the month of March contributed to a jump by Treasury yields. The ISM said its manufacturing PMI jumped to 50.3 in March from 47.8 in February, with a reading above 50 indicating growth in the sector. Street had expected the index to inch up to 48.4. With the much bigger than expected increase, the index returned to expansion territory for the first time since September 2022. The ISM said the prices index also jumped to 55.8 in March from 52.5 in February, as commodity driven costs remain unstable. On the sectoral front, Airline stocks came under considerable selling pressure over the course of the session, resulting in a 1.9 percent slump by the NYSE Arca Airline Index. The index gave back ground after ending last Thursday's trading at a three-month closing high. Significant weakness was also visible among interest rate-sensitive commercial real estate stocks, as reflected by the 1.8 percent loss posted by the Dow Jones U.S. Real Estate Index. Interest rate-sensitive housing and telecom stocks also saw notable weakness on the day, dragging both the Philadelphia Housing Sector Index and the NYSE Arca North American Telecom Index down by 1.4 percent.

Crude oil futures ended higher on Monday amid concerns about a possible drop in supplies following reports about an Israeli strike near the Iranian embassy in Damascus. Further, data showing an expansion in Chinese manufacturing activity in March has also raised optimism about a pick up in demand from the world's second largest economy. Besides, traders were also continuing to weigh the impact of Ukrainian attacks on Russian refineries. Benchmark crude oil futures for May delivery rose $0.54 or about 0.65% to settle at $83.71 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude for June delivery gained $0.42 or 0.48% to $87.42 per barrel on London's Intercontinental Exchange.

Forex market remained shut down on Monday on account of the annual account closing of banks.

The FIIs as per Thursday's data were net buyers in equity and debt segments both. In equity segment, the gross buying was of Rs 19964.98 crore against gross selling of Rs 15922.48 crore, while in the debt segment, the gross purchase was of Rs 3516.65 crore with gross sales of Rs 2075.55 crore. Besides, in the hybrid segment, the gross buying was of Rs 19.14 crore against gross selling of Rs 9.76 crore.

The US markets ended mostly in red on Monday as hopes of an early rate cut suffered fresh jolt after data showed that the US manufacturing sector grew for the first time since September 2022. Asian markets are trading mostly higher on Tuesday despite mixed cues from Wall Street overnight. Indian markets ended the first trading session of the financial year 2025 on a buoyant note on Monday, with Sensex and Nifty garnering around half a percent gains led by metal stocks. Today, domestic equity indices are likely to start session in red amid mixed cues from global peers. Investors will be looking ahead to the manufacturing PMI data to be out later in the day for more directional cues. Foreign fund outflows likely to dent sentiments. Provisional data from the NSE showed that foreign institutional investors (FIIs) net sold shares worth Rs 522.30 crore on April 1. However, some respite may come later in the day with report that the centre collected Rs 1.78 lakh crore as gross goods and services tax in the month of March, up 11.5% against the same month last year. This is the second highest monthly gross GST collection. This surge was driven by a significant rise in GST collections from domestic transactions at 17.6%. Some support may come as rating agency ICRA said domestic consumption demand, government's infrastructure spending and healthy balance sheets lent support to India Inc's credit profile in the 2023-24 fiscal, even though rise in borrowing cost, sluggish exports and certain global events posed challenges. Also, Crisil Ratings said the credit quality outlook for Indian corporates remains positive for the April-September period of the 2024-25 fiscal year with upgrades continuing to outpace downgrades. Besides, the rural development ministry data showed that work generation under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) increased 4.81% to 3.1 billion person-days in 2023-24 from 2.96 billion in the previous financial year, though individual demand for work remained nearly the same at 332.7 million, as against 331.5 million in 2022-23. There will be some buzz defence industry stocks with report that steadily rising exports of defence and aerospace equipment touched a record Rs 21,083 crore (about $2.63 billion) in the financial year 2023-24 (FY24), a growth of 32.5 per cent over last year's figure of Rs 15,920 crore. These figures indicate that the defence exports have grown by 31 times in the last decade. Auto stocks will be in focus with report that driven by robust demand for sports utility vehicles, passenger vehicle sales in India soared to a record high in FY 2023-24 with dispatch of over 42 lakh units. There will be some reaction in power industry stocks as the government data showed that India's power consumption growth remained subdued at 1.4 per cent to 129.89 billion units (BU) in March as compared to the year-ago period mainly due to pleasant weather. Meanwhile, India has initiated an anti-dumping probe into the import of a chemical used in the rubber industry from China and Japan following a complaint by a domestic player.

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

Nifty Top volumes

• Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone has handled 420 MMT (+24% Y-o-Y) cargo in FY24 (including international ports), with domestic ports contributing over 408 MMT cargo.
• NTPC has added 3,924 MW power generation capacity in 2023-24, taking the total installed capacity to around 76GW.
• M&M's total wholesales increased 4 per cent year on year to 68,413 units in March 2024. The company's total dispatches to its dealers stood at 66,041 units in March 2023.
• Coal India's coal production has increased by 6.1% to 88.6 million tonnes in March 2024 as against 83.5 million tonnes in March 2023.