Mahindra and Mahindra will announce its third quarter results today

Opening Bell:

SGX Nifty is down by 98 points in the early morning trade, indicating a negative opening for Indian stock market.

Asia-Pacific markets traded mixed on Friday, following moves on Wall Street and ahead of China’s inflation data. Economists polled by Reuters are expecting to see core prices in China rise by 2.2 percent on an annualized basis. The Japanese Nikkei is up by 0.80 percent. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng is down by 0.44 percent and South Korea’s Kospi is up by 2.70 percent in early morning deals.

US stock indexes ended lower on Thursday, erasing earlier gains as Treasury yields rose after an auction of 30-year bonds went poorly and overshadowed strong earnings from corporate giants like Disney and PepsiCo. The S&P 500 lost 0.88 percent and the Nasdaq Composite was down 1.0 percent respectively.

Stocks News:

?Food delivery giant Zomato’s net loss widened to Rs 347 core compared with a loss of 63 crore a year ago. Consolidated revenue from operations surged 75% on year to Rs 1,948 crore.

?Life Insurance Corp (LIC) of India on Thursday posted multi-fold growth in consolidated net profit at Rs 8,334 crore for the December 2022 quarter, compared with just Rs 211 crore in the corresponding quarter of last year.

?Index provider MSCI said it had determined that some Adani securities should no longer be designated as free float after market participants raised concerns about the eligibility of the Indian conglomerate’s companies for some of its indexes. Changes for Adani securities associated with its MSCI Global Investable Market Indexes were announced late on Thursday.

?Mahindra and Mahindra will announce its third quarter results today. Strong sales volume in both the automotive and tractor segments is likely to help M&M put up a good show in the quarter ended December.

?Foreign institutional investors (FII) sold shares worth Rs 144.73 crore, while domestic institutional investors (DII) offloaded shares worth Rs 205.25 crore on February 9, as per provisional data available on the NSE.

Domestic and International Events

• Crude prices eased on Thursday as oil infrastructure appeared to have escaped serious damage from the earthquake that devastated parts of Turkey and Syria, while US inventories swelled and investors worried about Federal Reserve rate hikes.
• The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits increased more than expected last week, but the underlying trend continued to point to a tight labor market.
• The US dollar fell across the board on Thursday, moving in line with lower Treasury yields, as investors stuck to their views that the Federal Reserve does not need to raise interest rates any more than it should as inflation is starting to get under control.
• A future Bank of Japan (BOJ) interest rate hike could affect the country’s sovereign debt rating if firms struggle to absorb rising funding costs, an official at S&P Global Ratings said on Thursday. Higher borrowing costs could also lead to a downturn in long-term economic growth, S&P said.

Key Equity Indices