Market Ahead, September 24: All you need to know before the opening bell

The Indian markets ended lower in yesterday's volatile session. The market trend is expected to be on the similar lines today with the SGX Nifty indicating an over 100 points drop for the Nifty at open while the scheduled expiry of monthly derivatives will keep the session volatile.

The weakness in SGX Nifty comes amid sharp fall in main Wall Street indices. Overnight, the Dow Jones fell 1.9 per cent, the S&P 500 lost 2.37 per cent and the Nasdaq dropped 3 per cent after data showed business activity slowed in September.

Asian stocks opened lower on Thursday. Australia's ASX 200 lost nearly 1 per cent and Japan's Nikkei dipped 0.6 per cent. Hong Kong's Hang Seng index dropped 1.3 per cent.

In commodities, Brent crude was trading at $41.48 per barrel.

Back home, India added 89,688 fresh Covid-19 cases on Wednesday, taking the total caseload past the 57 lakh-mark. The death toll, meanwhile, surpassed the 91,000-mark.

Apart from global cues and the Covid-19 trends, investors will also eye stock-specific developments, Rupee's trajectory and oil price movement in today's session.

A quick look at other top news.

To make fund-raising easier and faster, Sebi has rationalised the eligibility criteria and disclosure requirements for rights issue. Under the amendments, the regulator said the issuer will be eligible to make truncated disclosures for last one year instead of last three years as required earlier.

The six-month suspension of insolvency and bankruptcy proceedings against companies comes to an end today and government sources have hinted that there could be another extension in the light of the economic stress caused by the pandemic. The government's decision on any possible extension might come this week.

Tata Sons yesterday bought shares of Tata Chemicals and Tata Motors DVR through open market transactions. According to bulk deal data on NSE, Tata Sons purchased shares of Tata Chemicals for Rs 63.56 crore and Tata Motors DVR shares for Rs 22.51 crore.

The Punjab cabinet on Wednesday gave its nod for disinvestment of Punjab Alkalies & Chemicals Limited. The cabinet gave its go-ahead for disinvestment of 33.49 per cent equity shareholding of the company, held by state-owned Punjab State Industrial Development Corporation.

Some latest updates from the primary market.

Angel Broking's initial public offer was subscribed 1.46 times on the second day of subscription on Wednesday. The category meant for non institutional investors was subscribed 31 per cent and that of retail individual investors 2.79 times.

The initial public offering of both Computer Age Management Services and Chemcon Speciality Chemicals received strong investor response on Wednesday, the concluding day of the IPOs. CAMS was subscribed 47 times and Chemcon 149 times. The wealthy investor portion of CAMS was subscribed 112 times, the institutional portion 73 times, and the portion reserved for retail investors was subscribed five times.