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Indian equity, forex, money and commodity markets will remain closed today on account of Good Friday.
On Wednesday benchmark share indices ended the first session of the new financial year 2015-16 on a firm note led by a strong rally in FMCG, healthcare, realty and financials stocks with Sun Pharma contributing most to the gains ahead of record date set for the merger with Ranbaxy. The Sensex and Nifty moved up over 1% each to 28,260 and 8,586 levels, respectively.
However, technology stocks emerged as the only underperformers in trade after HCL Technologies warned of adverse cross currency impact on the company's revenue and EBIT in Q3 March 2015 in pre-quarter earnings update.
RBI'S MONETARY POLICY REVIEW
On Monday, the markets are likely to remain rangebound ahead of the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI's) review of the Monetary Policy on Tuesday, April 07. Analysts expect the central bank to keep rates unchanged.
"We expect the RBI to maintain status quo in the Apr’15 monetary policy as they might want to wait for more confirming data on inflation before taking any further action. Inflationary pressures in Mar’15 are likely to firm up further given the disruption in crops due to non seasonal rainfall and relative rise in crude oil prices. However, slowdown in core CPI and headline WPI is indicative of the subdued demand conditions in the economy," said Hitesh Agrawal, head research, Reliance Securities in a note.
"This is likely to keep the RBI on the edge. Going forward inflation is likely to remain range bound and RBI and the government are likely to undertake concrete efforts to lower the CPI further to achieve the mid-term target of 4.00% (+/-2.00%). This in turn, we believe, will aid the RBI to ease interest rates by another 50-75bps this fiscal," he adds.
"We believe that Nifty would undergo in consolidation phase within 8,400 - 8,700 in the coming week. So, traders should uphold stock specific trading approach and prefer counters from private banking, auto, infra and pharma space for fresh buying. On the other hand, further rebound in PSU banking, energy, metal and realty space may attract selling pressure so plan your positions accordingly," said Jayant Manglik, President-retail distribution, Religare Securities.
GLOBAL MARKETS
On Friday, the dollar stuck to its recent ranges in holiday-thinned trading on Friday and stocks edged up as investors awaited key US employment figures for possible clues on when the Federal Reserve will hike interest rates.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 0.2%, while Japan's Nikkei stock average was up 0.3%. Wall Street logged modest gains ahead of the holiday after two losing sessions.
Most US markets will be closed on Friday, when non-farm payrolls are expected to show an increase of 245,000 jobs in March, following a gain of 290,000 in February.
Data on Thursday showing an unexpected fall in the number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits raised hopes for a another strong labour reading, but not all strategists were convinced that the consensus expectation would be met.
Brent oil fell nearly 4% on Thursday after a preliminary pact between Iran and global powers on Tehran's nuclear program, even as officials set further talks in June and analysts questioned when the OPEC member will be allowed to export more crude.
(with Reuters inputs)
