Indian equity bourses staged recovery to close the Thursday's trading session in green terrain, with Sensex and Nifty reclaiming their crucial psychological levels of 38,600 and 11,550, respectively. After cautious start, key indices traded volatile during the whole session, affected by Federation of Indian Export Organisations' (FIEO) statement that rising protectionism, fluctuation in commodity prices and inadequate availability of liquidity are the three major challenges, which exporters will face in the coming months. Investors also got worried after the International Monetary Fund (IMF) favoured bolstering the level of capitalisation of some banks, particularly government-owned banks, noting that the level of non-performing loans in India remains high. Besides, the market participants remained cautious ahead of releases of March quarter earnings and inflation data. In the last leg of the trade, markets managed to erase their losses and ended higher. Traders got relief with reports that the government extended the last date for filing final sales return form GSTR-1 for March by two days till April 13. Similarly, the due date for furnishing tax deducted at source (TDS) return GSTR-7 for March has also been extended till April 12. The last date for filing GSTR-1 and GSTR-7 for the month was April 11 and April 10, respectively. Separately, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has discussed India's economic reforms and outlook for the future with investors in US. The street paid no heed towards the Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority's (APEDA) data showing data the country's exports of agricultural and processed food products have dipped by 2.27 per cent to $16.27 billion during the April-February period of 2018-19, on account of contraction in shipments of buffalo meat, wheat and non-basmati rice. Finally, the BSE Sensex gained 21.66 points or 0.06% to 38,607.01, while the CNX Nifty was up by 12.40 points or 0.11% to 11,596.70.

The US markets ended mostly lower on Thursday as investors look ahead to the beginning of earnings season, which unofficially kicks off on Friday. Financial giants JPMorgan Chase (JPM) and Wells Fargo (WFC) are due to report their quarterly results before the start of trading on Friday. Lingering uncertainty about the global economic outlook and a potential US-China trade deal also kept traders on the sidelines. Traders largely shrugged off a report from the Labor Department showing first-time claims for US unemployment benefits once again slid to their lowest level in nearly 50 years in the week ended April 6. The report said initial jobless claims fell to 196,000, a decrease of 8,000 from the previous week's revised level of 204,000. The continued drop surprised participants, who had expected jobless claims to rise to 211,000 from the 202,000 originally reported for the previous week. With the unexpected decrease, initial jobless claims fell to their lowest level since hitting 193,000 in October of 1969. The Labor Department said the less volatile four-week moving average also dipped to 207,000 from the previous week's revised average of 214,000, hitting its lowest level since December of 1969. Continuing claims, a reading on the number of people receiving ongoing unemployment assistance, also decreased by 13,000 to 1.713 million in the week ended March 30. Meanwhile, A report released by the Labor Department showed a spike in energy prices contributed to a bigger than expected increase in US producer prices in the month of March. The Labor Department said is producer price index for final demand climbed by 0.6% in March after inching up by 0.1% in February. Street had expected prices to rise by 0.3%. Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 14.11 points or 0.05 percent to 26143.05 and Nasdaq lost 16.89 points or 0.21 percent to 7947.36, while S&P 500 was up by 0.11 points to 2888.32.

Crude oil futures ended lower on Thursday as a monthly report from an International Energy Agency (IEA) warned that a slowdown in global economic growth could hurt demand for crude. That IEA report comes a day after a monthly Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) report showed a significant March output cut by the OPEC, which the IEA report also affirmed. Demand for crude among countries within the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD, including Australia, Canada and Belgium, fell by 300,000 barrels a day in the fourth quarter of 2018, marking the first quarterly demand decline for the group since 2014. Benchmark crude oil futures for May dropped $1.04 or 1.6 percent to settle at $63.58 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. June Brent crude declined 95 cents or 1.3 percent to settle at $70.78 a barrel on London's Intercontinental Exchange.

Indian rupee continued its upward momentum for the third day on Thursday, on the back of persistent selling of the American currency by exporters. Sentiments got up-beat with IMF's statement that some reforms in India have shown the benefits of digitalization which has also reduced the opportunities for discretion and fraud. However, there was some cautiousness too ahead of key domestic cues of retail inflation data and industrial production data due tomorrow. Meanwhile, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has discussed India's economic reforms and outlook for the future with investors in US. On the global front, dollar and euro were little changed on Thursday after the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank hinted they were willing to leave interest rates alone amid trade tensions and signs of flagging growth. Finally, the rupee ended at 68.92, 19 paise stronger from its previous close of 69.11 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 6418.80 crore against gross selling of Rs 5136.25 crore, while in the debt segment, the gross purchase was of Rs 802.86 crore with gross sales of Rs 797.11 crore. Besides in the hybrid segment, the gross buying was of Rs 3.35 crore against gross selling of Rs 4.69 crore.

The US markets ended mostly lower on Thursday as investors looked ahead to bank results that will kick off first-quarter earnings season. Asian markets are trading mixed on Friday as investor caution prevailed ahead of the release of first-quarter corporate earnings, although stronger US economic data helped offset some concerns about global growth. Indian equity markets ended Thursday's range-bound trading session on flat note with positive bias, on account of neutral foreign institutional investors (FIIs) and global sentiments. Today, the markets are likely to make a weak start ahead of macro-economic data and March-quarter corporate earnings amid mixed global cues. Market-men will be eyeing the macro economic data of industrial production for February and consumer price inflation for March to be released after the market hours. Traders will also be looking for fourth-quarter and year end corporate earnings for the financial year 2018-2019, with Tata Consultancy services (TCS) and Infosys reporting quarterly results today. There will be some cautiousness with report that after 108 economists and former RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan, International Monetary Fund's (IMF) Chief Economist Gita Gopinath expressed doubt over India's growth rate, saying that there are still some issues with the way India calculates it. However, some support may come later in the day with report that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) injected a total liquidity of Rs 2.98 lakh crore in the market in 2018-19. From a daily net average surplus of Rs 27,928 crore during February 1-6, 2019, systemic liquidity moved into deficit during February 7-March 31, reflecting the build-up of government cash balances. Traders may be reacting to the RBI's data showing that foreign investment of Indian companies grew 18 per cent to $2.69 billion in March as compared to the year-ago period. Traders may take note of NITI Aayog and Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) study stating that Electric Vehicles (EVs) sold in India through 2030 can save 474 million tonne of oil equivalent, worth Rs 15.2 lakh crore over their lifetime. There will be some buzz in the tyre industry stocks with rating agency Icra's report that the domestic tyre demand is expected to grow in the range of 7-9 per cent over the five year period between 2018-19 to 2022-23. It added that the market would also continue to witness investments over the period of next three years. There will be some reaction in banking sector stocks with the RBI's data showing that bank credit rose 13.24 percent to Rs 97.67 lakh crore for the fortnight to March 29, while deposits grew by 10.03 percent to Rs 125.72 lakh crore during the same period.

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

Nifty Top volumes

• HDFC Bank has partnered with Surat Police to launch a road safety initiative in the city. 
• L&T has purchased the entire stake held by Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation in L&T Shipbuilding, a subsidiary company, on April 10, 2019.   
• Bharti Airtel has made a payment of over Rs 2,745.8 crore to the Department of Telecom towards its spectrum dues. 
• Maruti Suzuki India has introduced additional safety features in Alto K10.