In choppy session, Indian equity benchmarks declined for second straight session on Thursday, dragged down by weakness in heavyweights like Larsen & Toubro, Titan Company, ONGC and Axis Bank as future and derivative contracts for October expired. The benchmarks opened lower and extended losses in afternoon trading, as sentiments were dampened with report that India has reported a daily jump of nearly 50,000 Covid-19 cases, even as the tally has soared past the 8-million mark. The country's death toll has mounted to 120,563. Market participants also took a note of Chief Economic Adviser K V Subramanian's statement that non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) need to follow prudential measures to ensure that risks do not mount and be vigilant about the quality of lending in these difficult times. The losses, however, were modest as compared to their other global peers, as traders found some support with domestic credit rating agency Crisil's report that financial conditions in India have staged a speedy recovery from the harrowing abyss they had been sent flailing into by the coronavirus disease (covid-19) pandemic in April, 2020. It said the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) measures have helped mitigate the large and broad-based economic damage caused by the pandemic. Adding optimism, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman stated that she was closely monitoring the progress of Micro Small Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), whom she called as the growth engine of the country. Meanwhile, the Commerce and Industry Ministry has released the next edition of its consolidated foreign direct investment (FDI) policy document, incorporating all the changes made over the past year. Finally, the BSE Sensex fell 172.61 points or 0.43% to 39,749.85, while the CNX Nifty was down by 58.80 points or 0.50% to 11,670.80.

The US markets ended higher on Thursday following the release of a report from the Commerce Department showing a stronger than expected rebound by the US economy in the third quarter. The Commerce Department said real gross domestic product skyrocketed by 33.1 percent in the third quarter after plunging by 31.4 percent in the second quarter. Street had expected GDP to soar by 31.0 percent. The substantial rebound in GDP came as consumer spending bounced back sharply, spiking by 40.7 percent in the third quarter after plummeting by 33.2 percent in the second quarter. Adding to the positive sentiment, the Labor Department released a report showing initial jobless claims fell to their lowest level since before the coronavirus-induced lockdowns in the week ended October 24th. The report said initial jobless claims dropped to 751,000, a decrease of 40,000 from the previous week's revised level of 791,000. Street had expected jobless claims to dip to 775,000 from the 787,000 originally reported for the previous week. With the bigger than expected decrease, jobless claims fell to their lowest level since hitting 282,000 in the week ended March 14th.

Magnifying their previous session's losses, crude oil futures ended lower on Thursday, as rising COVID-19 cases sparked tighter restrictions on activity in Europe and underlined worries about the outlook for the US and global economic recovery. France and Germany imposed tighter restrictions in response to the rising number of COVID-19 cases. The US reported 79,000 new cases on Wednesday, the second day in a row that the figure topped 70,000, as several states reported a jump in infections. Meanwhile, the US Energy Information Administration reported that domestic supplies of natural gas rose by 29 billion cubic feet for the week ended October 23. Crude oil futures for December fell $1.22 or 3.3 percent to settle at $36.17 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. December Brent crude dropped $1.47 or 3.8 percent to settle at $37.65 a barrel on London's Intercontinental Exchange.

Indian rupee concluded substantially weaker against dollar on account of continued dollar demand from importers and banks. Sentiments remained fragile despite private report that US called for stronger energy ties with India, hinting at the possibility of reducing trade and investment barriers between both the countries. Losses in the local equity market combined with disappointing quarterly earnings by some blue- chip companies also dampened sentiments. Meanwhile, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman stated that she was closely monitoring the progress of Micro Small Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), whom she called as the growth engine of the country. On the global front, dollar held gains against a basket of major currencies on Thursday as escalating coronavirus cases in Europe stoked investors fears that fresh lockdowns would further hit the already fragile economic recovery. Finally, the rupee ended at 74.10, 23 paise weaker from its previous close of 73.87 on Wednesday.

The FIIs as per Thursday's data were net seller in both equity and debt segment. In equity segment, the gross buying was of Rs 7621.27 crore against gross selling of Rs 8493.38 crore, while in the debt segment, the gross purchase was of Rs 370.62 crore with gross sales of Rs 1010.95 crore. Besides, in the hybrid segment, the gross buying was of Rs 14.59 crore against gross selling of Rs 18.37 crore.

The US markets closed higher on Thursday even though big tech companies like Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, and Facebook could not cheer Wall Street. Asian markets are trading in red on Friday as jitters over upcoming US presidential elections and fears that the global economic downturn will persist enveloped markets. Indian markets settled lower on Thursday as except IT and energy, all other sectoral indices ended lower led by FMCG, pharma, metal, and auto. Today, the start of session is likely to be pessimistic following two consecutive day's losses amid weakness in Asian peers. Traders will be concerned as the government data showed that contracting for the seventh consecutive month, the output of eight core infrastructure sectors dropped by 0.8 percent in September, mainly due to decline in production of crude oil, natural gas, refinery products and cement. The production of eight core sectors had contracted 5.1 percent in September 2019. There will be some cautiousness as the government's fiscal deficit rose to Rs 9.14 lakh crore, about 114.8 percent of the annual budget estimate, during the first six months of the current financial year, mainly on account of poor revenue realisation. The revenue realisation during the current fiscal suffered on account of the lockdown imposed by the government to check the spread of coronavirus pandemic. Besides, the World Bank said remittances to India would fall this year by nine percent to $76 billion due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and global economic recession. Meanwhile, according to Worldometer, coronavirus cases in India jumped to 8,088,046 with the addition of 49,281 new infections on Friday as the death toll peaked to 121,131. However,  some support may come later in the day with report that the Reserve Bank of India will conduct the second Open Market Operations (OMOs) purchase of State Developments Loans (SDLs), aggregating Rs 10,000 crore, on November 5, 2020. Traders may take note of report that Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Shaktikanta Das has underlined the need for strengthening the preventive vigilance framework to increase efficiency, stressing that it was also critical for ensuring good governance. Gold related stocks will be in focus as the World Gold Council (WGC) said gold demand of India is likely to recover in the fourth quarter (Q4) after falling 30% in the previous quarter as festivals are expected to strengthen retail jewellery purchases. There will be some important earnings announcements too to keep the markets buzzing.

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

Nifty Top volumes

• L&T's construction arm -- L&T construction has secured a mega order for its Heavy Civil Infrastructure business in India from the NHRCL. 
• Cipla has launched antibody detection kits for COVID-19 in India under the brand name ELIFast in partnership with KARWA, under the technology transfer from the ICMR. 
• Infosys has completed the acquisition of Blue Acorn iCi, an Adobe Platinum partner in the US, and a leader in digital customer experience, commerce and analytics. 
• Wipro has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Encore Theme Technologies, a specialist in providing SaaS and Cloud solutions in financial services.

Wonderla Holidays is all set to reopen in Bangalore for business from November 9, 2020. Over 12,000 frontline COVID-19 warriors will be invited to Wonderla in the opening week with their families to honour their efforts and commitment in the...

Ugro Capital is considering raising of funds through various options of borrowings including by way of issue of debt securities on a private placement basis. Based on the market conditions, Investment and Borrowing Committee will consider an...

IBM has collaborated with Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) to transform the latter's customer experience using digital tools. Around 12,400 IOC distributors covering about 130 million consumers can now use the IndianOil One mobile app and port...