Indian equity benchmarks garnered strong gains on Wednesday, with Sensex & Nifty ending higher by around 0.45% each. Key indices made a firm start, aided with the Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal's statement the government has strengthened several trade remedial measures, with an aim to provide a level-playing field for the domestic industry and protect it from unfair trade practices in a time-bound manner. The street took a note of reports that the government categorically stated that it does not intend to revise its fiscal deficit target of 3.3% of gross domestic product for the current financial year despite slowdown in economic activities. Firm trade persisted over markets during the whole day, amid report that the Centre is planning to set up a dedicated cell for agriculture startups and small entrepreneurs. National Rainfed Area Authority (NRRA) CEO Ashok Dalwai said there are numerous areas where startups can help farmers reduce cost and increase income. However, in the last hours of the trade, some of the gains got pared, with credit rating agency, CARE Ratings' report that the pace of employment growth in India has slowed down in the past two years, to 3.9 percent in 2017-18 and 2.8 percent in 2018-19 as the core industries have observed virtually, negative growth in hiring. Finally, the BSE Sensex rose 181.94 points or 0.45% to 40,651.64, while the CNX Nifty was up by 59.00 points or 0.49% to 11,999.10.

The US markets ended lower on Wednesday amid renewed uncertainty about a US-China trade deal after a private report said trade talks are in danger of hitting an impasse. Citing former administration officials and others following the talks, report said the potential impasse threatens to derail the Trump administration's plan for a limited phase one deal this year. It said both sides remain divided over core issues, including China's demand for removing tariffs and the US's insistence on China buying farm products. The report comes after President Donald Trump threatening higher tariffs on Chinese goods if an agreement is not reached. Meanwhile, minutes from the Federal Reserve's monetary policy meeting held in late October were released but did not provide much further insight into the outlook for interest rates. Interest rates are already widely expected to remain unchanged in the near future after the Fed's statement and congressional testimony by Fed Chairman Jerome Powell. The minutes said the decision to remove the act as appropriate language from the statement was seen as consistent with the view that the current stance of monetary policy was likely to remain appropriate as long as the economy performed broadly in line with the Fed's expectations. The Fed also reiterated that policy is not on a preset course and could change if developments emerged that led to a material reassessment of the economic outlook. Reiterating the assessment in the Fed's statement, the minutes said members noted that information received since the September meeting indicated that the labor market remained strong and that economic activity had been rising at a moderate rate.

Crude oil futures ended sharply higher on Wednesday, regaining the entire ground lost in the previous session, after the government data showed crude stockpiles in the US rose less than expected in the week ended November 15. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported that US crude supplies rose by 1.4 million barrels for the week ended November 15. That followed increases in each of the past three weeks. The latest climb, however, was a bit smaller than the 1.6 million-barrel rise expected by S&P Global Platts. The American Petroleum Institute on Tuesday reported a climb of roughly 6 million barrels. Benchmark crude oil futures for December surged $1.90 or 3.4 percent to settle at $57.11 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. January Brent rose $1.49 or 2.5 percent to settle at $62.40 a barrel on London's Intercontinental Exchange.

Erasing all of its initial gains, Indian rupee ended marginally weaker against the US dollar on Wednesday, due to increased demand of the greenback from the importers and the banks. Traders remained cautious with ratings agency CARE Ratings' report that the pace of employment growth in India has slowed down in the past two years, to 3.9 percent in 2017-18 and 2.8 percent in 2018-19 as the core industries have observed virtually, negative growth in hiring. The domestic currency was also weighed down by dollar's strengthen against some other currencies. On the global front, dollar rose on Wednesday after the US president threatened a trade war escalation and China condemned a US senate measure backing pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong. Finally, the rupee ended at 71.81, 10 paise weaker from its previous close of 71.71 on Tuesday.

The FIIs as per Wednesday's data were net sellers in both equity and debt segments. In equity segment, the gross buying was of Rs 7848.93 crore against gross selling of Rs 8475.32 crore, while in the debt segment, the gross purchase was of Rs 1059.84 crore with gross sales of Rs 1430.85 crore. Besides in the hybrid segment, the gross buying was of Rs 113.76 crore against gross selling of Rs 97.61 crore.

The US markets ended in red on Wednesday amid report that a so-called phase one trade deal between China and the US may not be completed by the end of 2019. Asian markets are trading lower on Thursday as a fresh row between Washington and Beijing over US bills on Hong Kong could complicate their trade negotiation and delay a phase one deal that investors had initially hoped to be inked by now. Indian markets ended higher for second straight day on Wednesday led by gains in index heavyweight Reliance Industries. Today, the markets are likely to make a cautious start amid weak global cues and rise in crude oil prices but slew of measures announced by government in various sectors are likely to support the indices. The government approved amendments proposed to the Toll Operate Transfer (TOT) model for national highways. The Centre approved the Code on Industrial Relations (IR) Bill, 2019 - considered to be the most contentious labour law amendments. Traders will take some encouragement with the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) data showing that bank's credit grew by 8.07 percent to Rs 98.47 lakh crore in the fortnight ended November 6. In a similar fortnight last year, the advances have stood at Rs 91.11 lakh crore. Some support may also come with a private report that the Indian economy is expected to start its recovery from the first quarter of 2020. There will be some buzz in the telecom stocks as Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced that the government has decided to grant a 2-year moratorium for telecom companies to pay their spectrum dues. She said that the committee of secretaries looked into issues in the telecom sector exhaustively. Auto stocks will be in focus with rating agency India Ratings and Research's statement that the implementation of the BS VI emission norms from April 1, 2020 could create short-term headwinds for the commercial vehicle (CV) segment. Also, there will be some reaction in sugar stocks as industry body ISMA said that India's sugar production declined 64 per cent to 4.85 lakh tonnes till November 15 in the current marketing year that started last month as mills in Maharashtra have not yet begun their operations. PSU stocks will be in limelight as the government given the in-principle approval for disinvestment in select CPSEs.

Support and Resistance: NSE (Nifty) and BSE (Sensex)

Nifty Top volumes

• Reliance Industries' telecom arm -- Jio is planning to hike the tariffs of its mobile phone call and data charges. 
• TCS has collaborated with Qualcomm Technologies to launch first-of-its-kind Innovation Hub in Hyderabad, India.
• Bharti Airtel has lost 23,84,610 subscribers in September 2019. 
• Wipro has signed a MoU with the University of Oulu, Finland to collaborate on 5G/6G Technologies.