Indian bourses ended Thursday's session near their day's low points. After a cautious start, the markets traded firmly for the most part of the day, amid reports that giving relief to composition scheme taxpayers under the GST, the Finance Ministry has allowed such businesses to file self-assessed tax return on quarterly basis in a simplified form. In yet another simplification, the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council has added flexibility into the way a company can utilise the available input tax credit. Any company would now be eligible to use credit available against paid integrated GST (IGST) to set off tax liabilities of state GST (SGST) and central GST (CGST) in any proportion and in any order. Traders also remained positive, as the Finance Ministry introduced several changes in the electronic way or e-way bill system, ranging from auto calculation of distance based on PIN codes for generation of e-way bill to barring businesses from generating multiple e-way bills based on one invoice, as it seeks to cracks down evasion in the GST framework. However, in the last hours of the trade, key indices failed to hold their heads in green terrain and turned negative to end the trading session in red terrain, on the account of weak cues from global markets. Trading sentiments worsened amid a private report stating that Indians are becoming increasingly worried about the economy's condition, with fewer citizens believing that the local economy is getting better. Adding more worries among market participants, the World Bank forecasted slowdown in East Asia and Pacific economies in 2019. Growth of East Asia and the Pacific (EAP) will remain at 6.0 per cent in 2019, which is down from 6.3 per cent in 2018. Different factors marred slow growth in major economies which suffered due to economic policies. Finally, the BSE Sensex slipped 323.82 points or 0.83% to 38,730.86, while the CNX Nifty was down by 84.35 points or 0.72% to 11,641.80.

The US markets ended mostly lower on Thursday as manufacturing-related sectors logged big losses. A double-digit decline in 3M Company's stock following disappointing earnings weighed on markets. However, Nasdaq settled higher with gain of around quarter percent on the bank of jumps by shares of Facebook (FB) and Microsoft (MSFT). The social media giant and the software giant surged up by 5.9% and 3.3%, respectively, after both reported quarterly results that exceeded Street estimates on both the top and bottom lines. On the economic front, reflecting a significant rebound in orders for transportation equipment, the Commerce Department released a report showing new orders for US manufactured durable goods jumped by much more than expected in the month of March. The Commerce Department said durable goods orders surged up by 2.7% in March after tumbling by a revised 1.1% in February. Street had expected durable goods orders to climb by 0.8% compared to the 1.6% slump originally reported for the previous month. The bigger than expected rebound in durable goods orders came as orders for transportation equipment shot up by 7.0% in March after plunging by 2.9% in February. Meanwhile, after reporting first-time claims for US unemployment benefits at a nearly fifty-year low in the previous week, the Labor Department released a report showing initial jobless claims rebounded by more than anticipated in the week ended April 20. The report said initial jobless claims climbed to 230,000, an increase of 37,000 from the previous week's revised level of 193,000. Street had expected jobless claims to rise to 200,000 from the 192,000 originally reported for the previous week. The bigger than expected increase came after the number of jobless claims in the previous week represented their lowest level since hitting 182,000 in September of 1969. Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 134.97 points or 0.51 percent to 26462.08 and S&P 500 was down by 1.08 points or 0.04 percent to 2926.17, while Nasdaq gained 16.67 points or 0.21 percent to 8118.68.

Crude oil futures ended lower on Thursday as traders continued to consider the likelihood that major producers will increase supply in response to tougher US action against Iran's oil market. Brent prices gave up earlier gains to settle lower for the first time in five sessions, with both crude benchmarks marking a retreat from the nearly six-month highs they reached earlier this week. However, downside remain capped on private report that Poland and Germany suspended imports of Russian crude via the Druzhba pipeline, the world's longest oil pipeline, citing contamination. About 700,000 barrels a day of the pipeline's 1 million-barrel a day capacity was suspended. Benchmark crude oil futures for June dropped 68 cents or 1 percent to settle at $65.21 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. June Brent crude declined 22 cents or 0.3 percent to settle at $74.35 a barrel on London's Intercontinental Exchange.

Extending weakness for the second day, Indian rupee ended significantly weaker against dollar on Thursday, as good demand for the greenback from importers and weakness in domestic shares. Traders remained concerned with a private report stating that Indians are becoming increasingly worried about the economy's condition, with fewer citizens believing that the local economy is getting better. Cautiousness also crept in with World Bank forecasted slowdown in East Asia and Pacific economies in 2019. Growth of East Asia and the Pacific (EAP) will remain at 6.0 per cent in 2019, which is down from 6.3 per cent in 2018. Different factors marred slow growth in major economies which suffered due to economic policies. A broad strengthening of the US dollar and elevated oil price have put the Indian currency under renewed pressure. On the global front, euro steadied against the dollar on Thursday after renewed worries about a growth slowdown in Germany drove it to a 22-month low overnight, while the yen showed little reaction to a Bank of Japan policy decision. Finally, the rupee ended at 70.25, 38 paise weaker from its previous close of 69.86 on Wednesday.

The FIIs as per Thursday's data were net buyers in equity and debt segments both. In equity segment, the gross buying was of Rs 5097.88 crore against gross selling of Rs 4257.78 crore, while in the debt segment, the gross purchase was of Rs 1385.54 crore with gross sales of Rs 1103.23 crore. Besides, in the hybrid segment, the gross buying was of Rs 2.03 crore against gross selling of Rs 4.52 crore.

The US markets ended mostly lower on Thursday as disappointing earnings reports from several industrial sector companies weighed on the market, offsetting strong results from Facebook, Microsoft and others. Asian markets are trading mostly in red on Friday ahead of the release of US GDP numbers, due later in the day. Indian markets witnessed bloodbath on the back of heavy sell-off in the dying hours of the trade amid F&O expiry falling on Thursday. Today, the start of the new series is likely to be cautious amid mixed cues from the global markets. There will be some cautiousness with a report that the US placed India on its Priority Watch List alleging lack of sufficient measurable improvements to its Intellectual Property (IP) framework on long-standing and new challenges that have negatively affected American right holders over the past year. The report said over the past year, India took steps to address intellectual property challenges and promote IP protection and enforcement. Though, many of the actions have not yet translated into concrete benefits for innovators and creators, and longstanding deficiencies persist. India remains one of the world's most challenging major economies with respect to protection and enforcement of IP. Meanwhile, the India's crude oil production fell over 4 per cent in the financial year 2018-19 after aging fields of state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) and Oil India (OIL) missed the target. The Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas data showed that India produced 34.2 million tonne of crude oil in the fiscal year ended March 31, down from 35.7 million tonne in the previous year. However, traders may take some support later in the day with the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) data showing that bank credit rose by 14.19 percent to Rs 96.45 lakh crore while deposits grew 10.60 percent to Rs 125.30 lakh crore in the first fortnight ended on April 12. In the year ago fortnight, deposits were at Rs 113.29 lakh crore and advances stood at Rs 84.46 lakh crore. There will be some buzz in the power sector stocks with ICRA's report that the power ministry's second auction for procuring 2.5 GW of thermal power in medium term at a higher tariff of Rs 4.41 per unit compared to Rs 4.24 per unit in the first round is positive for power producers, but signing of sale agreements with discoms remains crucial. There will be lots of important earnings announcements too, to keep the markets in action.

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

Nifty Top volumes

• Maruti Suzuki India will increase the price of Baleno RS Petrol variant and Diesel variants with immediate effect. 
• Bharti Infratel is hoping that merger of the company and Indus Towers would be completed in the next few months, as merger process is on track. 
• Abu Dhabi National Oil Company has signed a long-term sales agreement with Indian Oil Corporation for its high-quality base oil ADbase. 
• Vedanta has received environment clearance for the expansion of its oil and gas operation in Rajasthan that would entail an investment of Rs 12,000 crore.