Friday turned out to be a choppy day of trade for Indian equity benchmarks, where Sensex and Nifty went home with marginal cut, as market participants opted to remain on sidelines ahead of the quarterly earnings starting next week. Markets started the session on pessimistic note and extended southward journey, breaching their crucial 31,300 (Sensex) and 9,650 (Nifty) levels, as traders remained cautious with the report that India slipped by one spot to become the fourth-largest foreign investor into the UK. India set up 127 new projects in Britain last year and safeguarded 7,645 existing jobs as a result and created 3,999 new jobs in 2016-17. Traders also stayed on sidelines ahead of outcome of the G20 Summit began on July 7, as world leaders assembled to discuss fight against terrorism and ways to improve open trade. However, markets witnessed recovery in afternoon deals and get back their crucial bastions, as traders took some solace with report that net direct tax collection grew by 14.8 percent to Rs 1.42 lakh crore at the end of first quarter on account of surge in advance tax payments. According to the Ministry of Finance, the net direct tax collection represents 14.5% of the total Budget estimates of direct taxes of Rs 9.8 lakh crore for FY18. Traders also took some relief with Finance Minister Arun Jaitley's statement that the rollout of the Goods and Services Tax has been smooth, without causing much disruption. He said the economy has not been disrupted and we don't expect any disruption ahead, refuting critics who had thought that the GST rollout would impact trade and industry. Finally, the BSE Sensex shed 8.71 points or 0.03% to 31,360.63, while the CNX Nifty was down by 8.75 points or 0.09% to 9,665.80. 

The US markets showed splendid performance and all the indices went home with decent gains on Friday, as investors opted to buy beaten down but fundamentally strong stocks after previous session's drubbing. Sentiments remained up-beat following the release of a report from the Labor Department showing much stronger than expected job growth in the month of June. The report said non-farm payroll employment jumped by 222,000 jobs in June following an upwardly revised increase of 152,000 jobs in May. The street had expected employment to climb by 179,000 jobs compared to the addition of 138,000 jobs originally reported for the previous month.  Despite the stronger than expected job growth, the unemployment rate inched up to 4.4 percent in June from 4.3 percent in May. Economists had expected the unemployment rate to hold steady. The Labor Department also said average hourly employee earnings rose by 0.2 percent to $26.25. Average hourly earnings in June were up by 2.5 percent year-over-year. Meanwhile, Traders kept an eye on developments out of the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany, where President Donald Trump held his first face-to-face meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 94.30 points or 0.44 percent to 21,414.34, Nasdaq surged 63.62 points or 1.04 percent to 6,153.08, and S&P 500 edged higher by 15.43 points or 0.64 percent to 2,425.18.

Crude oil futures tumbled again on Friday, making it another week of losses, after oil services firm Baker Hughes reported that the number of active U.S. rigs drilling for oil rose by 7 to 763 rigs this week, the 24th weekly rise in 25 weeks. While, the OPEC exports hit a 2017 high, casting doubt over efforts by producers to curb global oversupply. Traders even overlooked the good economic data of the U.S. creating 222,000 new jobs in June. Benchmark crude oil futures for August delivery declined by $1.29 or 2.8 percent to $44.23 on the New York Mercantile Exchange. In London, Brent crude for August delivery ended up by $1.36 or 2.8 percent at $46.75 a barrel on the ICE.

Indian rupee ended substantially stronger against dollar on Friday due to selling of American currency by banks and exporters. Besides, dollar weakness against some other currencies overseas added to the rupee gains. Some support also came with report that net direct tax collection grew by 14.8 per cent to Rs 1.42 lakh crore at the end of first quarter on account of surge in advance tax payments. As per the finance ministry the net direct tax collection represents 14.5 per cent of the total Budget Estimates of direct taxes of Rs 9.8 lakh crore for 2017-18. The domestic currency remained unaffected by the weak trade in domestic equity market. On the global front, dollar hit a seven-week high against yen on Friday after the Bank of Japan increased its purchases of government bonds, expanding monetary policy at a time when other major central banks are moving towards tightening. Finally, the rupee ended at 64.59, 18 paise stronger from its previous close of 64.77 on Thursday.

The FIIs as per Friday's data were net buyers in equity and debt segments both. In equity segment, the gross buying was of Rs 4829.86 crore against gross selling of Rs 4223.68 crore, while in the debt segment, the gross purchase was of Rs 2523.51 crore with gross sales of Rs 930.13 crore.

The US markets came out of the sluggish mood in the last session and posted good gains on getting an upbeat job data, with the Labor Department showing much stronger than expected job growth in the month of June. The Asian markets have made mostly a positive start led by the Japanese market which is up by over half a percent in early deals as the yen fell. The Chinese shares were lower even though producer prices showed robust demand in Asia's largest economy. The Indian markets showed good recovery attempt in the final hours of the last session but ended marginally in red. Today, the start of the new week is likely to be in green tailing the positive global cues, though traders will be eyeing the start of the official earnings season this week to gauge the performance of India Inc in the first quarter. Traders will also be getting some support with reports that foreign investors have pumped in nearly USD 23 billion into the Indian capital markets in January-June 2017 on several factors, including expectations of accelerated pace of reforms. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, noting that the GST (Goods and Services Tax), which was implemented last week, was the biggest tax reform in the last 70 years has said it would help businesses and create a unified market of 1.3 billion people. Modi also underlined support for free and open trade regime of World Trade Organization (WTO). There will be some buzz in the aviation sector, as the Finance Ministry has exempted aircraft imported on lease from the 5 per cent Goods and Service Tax (GST) levy. Under the recently introduced GST regime, aircraft imported on lease basis attracted integrated GST (iGST) of 5 per cent.

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

Nifty Top volumes

• Tata Motors has slashed prices of its commercial vehicles post GST in order to pass on benefits to its customers.
• Bajaj Auto's Austrian arm KTM has reduced the prices of bikes in India by up to Rs 8,600 to pass on the GST benefit to customers.
• Infosys is planning to open its next Technology and Innovation Hub in North Carolina and hire 2,000 American workers in the state by 2021.
• Wipro is mulling alternative proposals for its second project in Kolkata.