Maintaining gaining momentum for third straight session, Indian equity bourses ended Monday's trading session on cheerful note. The markets started the session with marginal gains, as India's factory output, as measured in terms of the Index of Industrial Production (IIP), slowed down to 20-month low of 0.1% in February, mainly due to contraction in the manufacturing sector. It had grown by 6.9% in February 2018. Separately, India's retail inflation, measured in Consumer Price Index (CPI), continued rising trend for second straight month and increased marginally to 2.86% in March 2019 as compared to 2.57% in February 2019, on account of increase in prices of food articles and fuel. But, key indices managed to add gains during the session, aided by Former Niti Aayog vice chairman Arvind Panagariya's statement that the Modi government has achieved major successes in social sector programmes like Ayushmaan Bharat, PM-Kisan and rural electrification. Besides, he added that this government has made an unprecedented progress in tackling corruption. Upward rally continued during second half of the session, on the back of heavy buying coupled with positive cues from other Asian markets. The street took support with a report stating that foreign investors have pumped in a net sum of Rs 11,096 crore into the Indian capital markets in April so far, driven by global and domestic factors. Foreign portfolio investors (FPI) were net buyers for the previous two months as well, infusing a net sum of Rs 11,182 crore in February and Rs 45,981 crore in March. Adding more comfort among traders, a private report showed that financing deals for Indian infrastructure projects are surging on market expectations that the next government will come through with at least some of the spending that politicians are promising now during a heated election campaign. The market participants overlooked rising WPI inflation data report in late noon deals. India's Wholesale price index (WPI) inflation has come in at 3.18% in the month of March as compared to 2.93% (provisional) for the previous month. Finally, the BSE Sensex gained 138.73 points or 0.36% to 38,905.84, while the CNX Nifty was up by 46.90 points or 0.40% to 11,690.35.

The US markets ended marginally lower on Monday after earnings from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Citigroup Inc. underwhelmed amid concerns over the banking sector's health. The drop by Goldman Sachs comes after the company reported better than expected first quarter earnings but revenues that missed expectations. Shares of Citigroup (C) also closed just below the unchanged line even though the company reported first quarter earnings that exceeded analyst estimates. Nonetheless, traders seemed reluctant to make more significant moves ahead of the release of quarterly results from a slew of other big-name companies in the coming days. Bank of America (BAC), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), IBM (IBM), Morgan Stanley (MS), PepsiCo (PEP), and American Express (AXP) are among the companies due to report their results this week. On the economic front, after reporting an unexpected slowdown in the pace of growth in New York manufacturing activity in the previous month, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York released a report showing growth picked up somewhat in April but remained fairly subdued. The New York Fed said its headline general business conditions index climbed to 10.1 in April after falling to 3.7 in March, with a positive reading indicating growth in regional manufacturing activity. Street had expected the index to rise to 6.0. The bigger than expected increase by the headline index came as the new orders index rose to 7.5 in April from 3.0 in March. The shipments index also inched up to 8.6 from 7.7. On the other hand, the report said the number of employees index edged down to 11.9 in April from 13.8 in March, indicating modestly slower job growth. Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 27.53 points or 0.10 percent to 26384.77, Nasdaq declined 8.15 points or 0.10 percent to 7976.01 and S&P 500 was down by 1.83 points or 0.06 percent to 2905.58.

Crude oil futures ended lower on Monday as a Russian official reportedly questioned his country's participation in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)-led production cut deal on concerns over market share. Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said there is a dilemma. What should we do with OPEC: should we lose the market, which is being occupied by the Americans, or quit the deal.  He said such a move could drive the price of oil to $40 a barrel or below. Besides, in a monthly report, the government agency, the Energy Information Administration said crude-oil production from seven major US shale plays is forecast to climb by 80,000 barrels a day in May to 8.46 million barrels a day, from 8.38 million in April. Benchmark crude oil futures for May dropped 49 cents or 0.8 percent to settle at $63.40 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. June Brent crude declined 37 cents or 0.5 percent to settle at $71.18 a barrel on London's Intercontinental Exchange.

Extending weakness for the second day, Indian rupee depreciated against dollar on Monday, on increased demand for the US currency from importers. Traders remained concerned with data showing that India's retail inflation saw a marginal rise of 2.86% in March on account of increase in prices of food articles and fuel. Also, industrial growth fell to its lowest in 20 months in February, barely rising from a year ago as manufacturing contracted following muted consumer demand, and public investment slowed toward the fiscal year-end. Cautiousness remained among the traders with data showing that Wholesale price-based inflation rose for the second consecutive month to 3.18% in March on costlier food and fuel. The Wholesale Price Index (WPI) based inflation was at 2.93% in February. On the global front, yen fell towards a 2019 low on Monday as a rally in global markets cut into demand for currencies considered safe havens. Finally, the rupee ended at 69.42, 25 paise weaker from its previous close of 69.17 on Friday.

The FIIs as per Monday'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 4008.23 crore against gross selling of Rs 3402.63 crore, while in the debt segment, the gross purchase was of Rs 179.70 crore with gross sales of Rs 1246.22 crore. Besides, in the hybrid segment, the gross buying was of Rs 4.55 crore against gross selling of Rs 1.65 crore.

The US markets declined on Monday, weighed by losses in financial stocks as earnings from Wall Street's big banks Goldman Sachs and Citigroup failed to impress. Asian markets are trading mixed on Tuesday as US-Japan trade talks kicked off and the Bank of Japan chief flagged risks of increasing trade protectionism to the global economic growth outlook. Indian markets extended their northward journey for third straight session on Monday following firm global cues and buying in blue-chip counters such as Tata Motors, TCS and Coal India. Today, the markets are likely to make slightly positive start tracking optimistic monsoon forecast and good trade data. The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has said that the country is likely to have near normal monsoon this year with a well distributed rainfall which could be beneficial for the agriculture sector. It added that the seasonal rainfall is likely to be 96% of the Long Period Average (LPA) with a model error of plus or minus 5%. It also said weak El Nino conditions are likely to prevail during the monsoon season with reduced intensity. Besides, the government data has showed that India's exports grew by 11% to $32.55 billion in March on account of higher growth in sectors including pharma, chemicals and engineering. Imports rose by 1.44% to $43.44 billion during the month. However, trade deficit narrows to $10.89 billion as compared to $13.51 billion in the same month last year. Some support will also come with a private report that the rise in banks' profitability, thanks to a steady decline in dud assets, can give a 0.60% boost to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in fiscal 2020. Meanwhile, Finance minister Arun Jaitley has said fast economic growth and rapid urbanisation would slash the number of people in extreme poverty by 2021 and end it completely in the decade after that. However, there may be some cautiousness amid subdued global cues. There will be some buzz in the agriculture related stocks with report that the government has decided to extend the duration of the New Urea Policy from April 1 this year till further orders to ensure smooth supply of nutrients to farmers. The extension of the policy would facilitate in continuation of operations of urea plants and ensure regular supply of urea to the farmers. There will be some reaction in textile industry stocks with report that India's cotton crop production may fall 7.87% to 343 lakh bales (of 170 kg each) in the 2018-19 season, mainly due to drought in many cotton-growing regions. There will be some earnings announcements too to keep the markets buzzing.

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

Nifty Top volumes

• Dr. Reddy's Laboratories has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire a portfolio of 42 approved, non-marketed Abbreviated New Drug Applications in the US. 
• Reliance Industries' telecom arm -- Jio has crossed the 300 million customers mark in two-and-a-half years of its operations.  
• Hero MotoCorp has launched an exciting vehicle maintenance scheme for customers who exercise their Right to Vote. 
• Bharti Airtel and Cisco have entered into an alliance to offer advanced networking and connectivity solutions to enterprise and SMB customers in India.