Stock markets will remain closed in India on Wednesday on account of Eid-ul-Fitr. Apart from BSE and the National Stock Exchange (NSE), forex markets and commodity courses will also be closed for trading. Eid al-Fitr is a Muslim festival which marks the culmination of the fasting month of Ramzan and is celebrated across the country. Banks across the country will also be closed on Wednesday.
On Tuesday, benchmark stock market indices settled with modest losses as investors awaited the Reserve Bank of India (RBI’s) decision on interest rates. The Sensex fell 184.08 points, or 0.46 per cent, to 40,083.54, while the Nifty 50 index dropped 66.90 points, or 0.55 per cent, to 12,021.65.
In the foreign exchange market, the rupee ended the Tuesday trading session flat at 69.26 per dollar.
The RBI’s six-member monetary policy committee (MPC) began its bi-monthly monetary policy review on Tuesday, and will most likely wrap up the three-day meeting by cutting the repo rate by 25 basis points (bps) on 6 June, say analysts, citing a sharp decline in India’s gross domestic product (GDP) growth in 2018-19.
Meanwhile, Asian shares jumped on Wednesday, tracking the Wall Street rally, after the US central bank comments pointed to increasing prospects of an interest rate cut, boosting investor sentiment and pushing the dollar lower.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan edged up 0.4 per cent, while Japan’s Nikkei average climbed 1.9 per cent.
On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite clocked their biggest one-day gains in five months.
In commodity markets, oil prices ended as much as 1% higher on Tuesday after a global stock market rally pulled up Brent crude from a four-month low touched earlier in the session.
Source: News18