Indian equity benchmarks staged sharp recovery to end Wednesday's trading session in green terrain. After a negative start, indices altered between green and red terrain, amid a private report that India's GDP growth estimate to 5.3% from 6% amid a rash of similar actions, especially after the September quarter growth slowed to a 26-quarter low of 4.5%. In noon deals, losses got extended, even though India's services sector activity returned to growth in the month of November. As per the survey report, the seasonally adjusted Nikkei Services Business Activity Index bounced back to 52.7 in November from 49.2 in October. However, indices managed to come back in green terrain in the last hour of the trade. Sentiments got relief, after Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal said that the FDI inflow into India has increased in the last fiscal in comparison to previous years with $62 billion foreign investments in 2018-19. In 2017-18, the total FDI inflow was $60.97 billion. Adding more comfort, India ranked 73rd out of 152 countries in the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development's Business-to-Consumer (B2C) E-commerce Index 2019 that measures an economy's preparedness to support online shopping, moving seven places up in the list. Finally, the BSE Sensex gained 174.84 points or 0.43% to 40,850.29, while the CNX Nifty was up by 49.00 points or 0.41% to 12,043.20.

After showing a notable move to the downside over the past few sessions, the US markets ended higher with gains of over half percent on Wednesday following a report that a phase-one trade US-China trade deal was still in the works, helping to offset fears of a delay sparked a day earlier by President Donald Trump's remarks. Report said US negotiators expect a phase one deal to be completed before US tariffs are set to rise on December 15. On the economic data front, a report released by the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) showed the pace of growth in US service sector activity slowed by more than anticipated in the month of November. The ISM said its non-manufacturing index dipped to 53.9 in November after climbing to 54.7 in October. While a reading above 50 still indicates service sector growth, Street had expected the index to edge down to 54.5. Besides, private sector employment increased by much less than anticipated in the month of November, according to a report released by payroll processor ADP. ADP said private sector employment rose by 67,000 jobs in November after climbing by a revised 121,000 jobs in October. Street had expected employment to jump by 140,000 jobs compared to the addition of 125,000 jobs originally reported for the previous month. The weaker than expected job growth came as a continued increase in employment in the service-providing sector was partly offset by a loss of jobs in the good-producing sector.

Crude oil futures ended sharply higher on Wednesday after US government data showed the first decline in US inventories in six weeks. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported that US crude supplies fell by 4.9 million barrels for the week ended November 29. That followed increases in each of the past five weeks. The American Petroleum Institute on Tuesday reported a 3.7 million-barrel decline. Besides, traders awaited a key meeting of members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) set for Thursday and a separate gathering that includes large non-OPEC producers - a group collectively known as OPEC+ - scheduled for Friday. Benchmark crude oil futures for January surged $2.33 or 4.2 percent to settle at $58.43 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. January Brent rose $2.18 or 3.6 percent to settle at $63 a barrel on London's Intercontinental Exchange.

Indian rupee, after a weak start, wiped out all of its losses and ended stronger against dollar on Wednesday ahead of the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) monetary policy decision on December 05. There are expectation that the RBI may cut interest rates for the sixth straight time, to support growth that has continued to slip. Sentiments got a boost with Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal's statement that the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflow into India has increased in the last fiscal in comparison to previous years with $62 billion foreign investments in 2018-19. In 2017-18, the total FDI inflow was $60.97 billion. Some support also got with report that global rating agency S&P has reaffirmed sovereign rating of India with a stable outlook. On the global front, the pound rallied against the US dollar as some weakness in the greenback triggered some technical demand for the British currency. Finally, the rupee ended at 71.53, 13 paise stronger from its previous close of 71.66 on Tuesday.

The FIIs as per Wednesday's data were net sellers in equity segment, while they were net buyers in debt segment. In equity segment, the gross buying was of Rs 4638.26 crore against gross selling of Rs 4741.08 crore, while in the debt segment, the gross purchase was of Rs 1503.92 crore with gross sales of Rs 303.19 crore. Besides, in the hybrid segment, the gross buying was of Rs 40.06 crore against gross selling of Rs 33.97 crore.

The US markets ended higher on Wednesday amid a report that a phase-one trade US-China trade deal was still in the works. Asian markets are trading mostly in green on Thursday on signs the United States and China were on track for a preliminary trade deal. Indian markets ended volatile session in green territory mainly on the back of fag-end recovery driven by gains in banking and IT stocks amid India's services sector activity recovering in November. Today, the markets are likely to make a cautious start amid rise in crude oil prices and ahead of the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) policy meeting outcome. There is expectation of a 25 bps rate cut by the central bank to support growth and revive investment cycle. There will be some cautiousness with the World Bank's statement that India faces twin threats to its income from global trade which makes up 48 per cent of India's GDP - rise of protectionism and trade wars and technological change. The World Bank believes that as much as 1 per cent of India's GDP could be shaved off by ongoing trade wars. However, traders may take note of report that the GST Council meeting scheduled to be held on December 18 is likely to deliberate on raising cess on some more products to meet the growing need of compensation among other issues. Meanwhile, the Union Cabinet approved the launch of an exchange-traded fund (ETF) for bonds to create an additional source of funding for Central Public Sector Enterprises (CPSEs) and state-owned financial institutions. The New Fund Offer (NFO) of this ETF is expected to be launched during December itself. There will be some buzz in the PSU stocks with a private report that the government will recommend loss-making PSUs identified for strategic stake sale for closure and will not wait endlessly and won't make repeated attempts to get a bidder. Infra stocks will be in focus with Union Minister Rao Inderjit Singh's statement that as per the flash report of July, 2019, a total of 355 projects are showing cost overrun and the overall cost overruns is Rs 3.88 trillion. There will be some reaction on power stocks with report that the power distribution companies in the states owe Rs 67,245 crore as overdue to power generating companies at the end of October 2019.

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

Nifty Top volumes

• M&M has launched its first BS-VI compliant vehicle in the form of its compact SUV, XUV300 with price ranging from Rs 8.30 lakh to Rs 11.84 lakh. 
• Wipro has launched advanced cloud Security Operations Centre services powered by Microsoft Azure Sentinel. 
• Tata Motors in association with Google has launched Tata Altroz Voice BoT, a personalized, interactive voice experience for the Tata Altroz, using the Google Assistant. 
• Yes Bank has sold its entire holding of 13.77 lakh equity shares having nominal value of Rs 10 each, constituting 5.49% of the paid-up share capital of One Point One Solutions.