Flat opening on the cards

Indian equity benchmarks opened the session with a gap-up and it traded in a narrow range for the first half of the trading session, however, in the second half of the trading session markets extended morning gains and ended the day near day’s high. The BSE Sensex surged 276 points to settle at 31,568. The Nifty climbed 87 points to settle at 9,853.

Majority of European markets ended Wednesday’s session in the negative territory. Economic data from Europe was a positive, with private sector activity maintaining its strong growth momentum in August. The DAX of Germany lost 0.45 per cent and the CAC 40 of France slid 0.32 per cent. While, the FTSE 100 of the U.K. ended flat.

U.S. stocks ended with modest losses on Wednesday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 88 points to close at 21,812. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index lost 19 points to close at 6,278. The S&P 500 shed 8 points to close at 2,444.

Asian markets are a bit subdued in the early trade on Thursday. Japan’s Nikkei 225 has slipped 26 points. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng has surged 129 points. China’s Shanghai Composite has shed 8 points.

The outlook is a quieter start with a positive bias as cues from Asian markets are subdued. The muted trend in the SGX Nifty which was trading at 9,868 up by 12 points, indicating a flat start for the day.