It was another lackadaisical performance from the Indian benchmark indices on Thursday, as they failed to gain ground and settled marginally above the neutral line. The key indices oscillated in an extremely tight range through the session as market participants remained on the sidelines lacking conviction amid the persistent worries over global financial stability. The sentiments took support from positive developments from the Southwest monsoon rains that showed a marginal rise of one per cent with a good amount of precipitation in several parts of the country for the period between June 1 and July 6, 2016. Also, Food Minister Ram Vilas Paswan said pulse production could increase by 18 per cent to 20 million tonnes this crop year on better monsoon which would help bring down retail prices and ease some pressure from inflation. Some support also came with the newly appointed Minister of State for Finance Santosh Gangwar's statement that the government is confident of getting the much-delayed GST Bill passed in the upcoming Monsoon session of Parliament, beginning later this month. However, gains remained capped with the US stating that India's growth rate target of 7.5% seems 'overstated' due to 'depressed investor sentiment' stemming from its failure to implement crucial market reforms, but it lauded Reserve Bank governor Raghuram Rajan for his 'monetary stewardship'. On the global front, Asian stock markets ended mixed on Thursday, while all major European stock markets traded with firm gains in early deals. Back home, the Indian equity indices made cautious start despite positive close of US markets overnight, as investors preferred staying on the sidelines as they lacked conviction for the strength of the market. Thereafter, the indices kept oscillating in a narrow range through the day's trade. Finally, the BSE Sensex gained 34.62 points or 0.13% to 27201.49, while the CNX Nifty was tad higher by 1.95 points or 0.02% to 8,337.90.

The US markets closed mostly lower on Thursday, tracking sinking oil prices. Investors were reluctant to place any big bets ahead of Friday's jobs report. On the economy front, initial claims for unemployment benefits fell by 16,000 last week to a nearly three-month low of 254,000, showing no evidence of rising layoffs ahead of the key US jobs report for June. Applications for unemployment benefits are the lowest since claims touched a post-recession bottom of 248,000 in mid-April. The average of new jobless claims over the past month slid 2,500 to 264,750. Continuing jobless claims fell by 44,000 to 2.12 million in the week ended June 25. Private-sector employment picked up a bit in June, suggesting the weak May nonfarm-payroll report may be an anomaly. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down by 22.74 points or 0.13 percent to 17,895.88, S&P 500 lost 1.83 points or 0.09 percent to 2,097.90, while Nasdaq added 17.65 points or 0.36 percent to 4,876.81.

Crude oil futures suffered sharp slump on Thursday and fell to near two months low hit by a lower than expected U.S. inventory draw last week, which drew concern about supply glut. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said in its Weekly Petroleum Status Report that U.S. commercial crude oil inventories decreased by 2.23 million barrels for the week ending on July 1. For the week, total motor gasoline inventories decreased by 0.1 million barrels, while distillate fuel inventories declined by 1.6 million barrels. Benchmark crude oil futures for August delivery was up $2.27 or 4.79 percent to close at $45.17 a barrel after trading in a range of $44.88 and $48.25 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. In London, Brent oil futures for September delivery gained 2.35 or 4.82 percent to $46.45 a barrel on the ICE.

Indian rupee ended stronger against dollar on Thursday due to fresh selling of the American currency by banks and exporters amid foreign fund inflows. The domestic currency was trading strong from the start and was supported by the gains in local equity markets which despite some volatility had a positive close. Besides, weak dollar against some currencies overseas after the Fed minutes of recent policy meet suggested that the US Federal Reserve was unsure over the path of future rate hikes amid weakness in jobs data and global worries supported the rupee gains to some extent. On the global front, Yen was higher against Dollar amid speculation of long-term delays to a Federal Reserve rate hike. Finally the rupee ended at 67.39, 6 paise stronger from its previous close of 67.45 on Tuesday

The FIIs as per Thursday's data were net buyers in equity segment, while they were net sellers in debt segment. In equity segment, the gross buying was of Rs 3241.41 crore against gross sell of Rs 2946.11 crore, while in the debt segment, the gross purchase was of Rs 1249.09 crore with gross sales of Rs 1396.60 crore.

The US markets made a mixed closing in last session following a lackluster day of trade, as the major averages kept bouncing back and forth across the neutral line with prevailing cautiousness ahead of the monthly jobs report on Friday. The Asian markets have made a soft start and some of the indices in the region are down by around a percent in early deals, as the crude traded near two months low and shifted focus to Friday's key US jobs data for gauging the rate hike chances. The Indian markets trading in a range and witnessing choppiness in the final hours managed to close modestly in green in the last session. Today, the start of the day is likely to be soft tailing the weakness in the global indices. Markets may get some support with Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das' statement that the Finance Ministry is hoping that the prices of pulses will now be contained and help keep inflation under check due to the higher minimum support price for pulses. Also, on report from rating agency CRISIL that India Inc is expected to see a two-year high growth rate of eight per cent in revenue during this financial year's first quarter ended June 30, mainly driven by export-oriented units like information technology sector. There will be some buzz in the power sector stocks, as the Power Minister Piyush Goyal has said that his ministry is experimenting with a technology, brown-out, which can provide some power backup to households in the event of a grid failure leading to blackouts. PSU oil marketing companies are likely to gain with global crude prices slumping more than 4 per cent after the US government reported that a drop in weekly crude stockpiles.

                          Support and Resistance: CNX Nifty and BSE Sensex

Nifty Top volumes

• Tata Motors' subsidiary -- Jaguar Land Rover has surpassed its previous half-year sales records in the first six months of 2016 , with Jaguar retailing 16,603 vehicles, up 68% on the same period in 2015 and Land Rover retailing 45,711 vehicles, up 10%.
• Larsen & Toubro's construction arm -- L&T Constructions has bagged orders worth Rs 3,598 crore across various business segments.
• Bank of Baroda, one of the company's leading public-sector banks, is reportedly planning to offer rating-based lending to retail mortgage loan seekers, which involves giving loans based on credit scores.
• ICICI Bank, the country's private sector lender, has decided to raise Rs 25000 crore by way of issue of non-convertible debentures including but not limited to bonds and non-convertible debentures on a private placement basis.
• Tech Mahindra's subsidiary - Mahindra Comviva, the global leader in mobility solutions, has launched the MobiLytix Suite, a big data-driven mobile analytics solution that generates actionable customer insights.