SGX Nifty down 70 points; 5 things to know before opening bell on Thursday

BSE Sensex and Nifty 50 are likely to extend losses from the previous session on Thursday on account of expiry of October series futures and options contracts. Analysts expect the volatility to remain in the share market ahead of US presidential election. In the previous session, the 30-share BSE Sensex plummeted 599.64 points or 1.48 per cent lower to end the day at 39,922.46 points. While the broader Nifty 50 index gave up 11,750 and settled at 11,730. “Now key support is seen at 11650 and a move below that, Nifty can witness further selling towards 11500. Investors would look for cues from the ECB and BoJ monetary policy meeting on Thursday along with US GDP data,” said Siddhartha Khemka, Head – Retail Research, Motilal Oswal Financial Services Ltd.

Key things to know before the opening bell:

SGX Nifty: Trends on SGX Nifty indicate a negative opening for BSE Sensex and Nifty 50. Nifty futures were trading 68 points down at 11,656 on Singaporean Exchange.

Global markets: In overnight trade on Wall Street, US Stocks witnessed worst rout since late-July as COVID-19 cases spiked worldwide and investors worried about the possibility of a contested U.S. presidential election next week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 3.43 per cent, the S&P 500 lost 3.53 per cent, and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 3.73 per cent. Mirroring Wall Street, Asian stocks were too trading lower on Thursday. In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng index fell 1.37 per cent, South Korea’s Kospi shed 1.55 per cent. Japan’s Nikkei 225 declined 0.74 per cent while the Topix index shed 0.54 per cent.

FII and DII data: On Wednesday, foreign institutional investors (FIIs) offloaded shares worth Rs 1,130.98 crore, whereas domestic institutional investors (DIIs) lapped up shares worth Rs 1.48 crore in the Indian equity market on a net basis, according to the provisional data available on the NSE.

Earnings today: A total of 82 companies including Maruti Suzuki, BPCL, Vodafone Idea, TVS Motors, InterGlobe Aviation, IDBI Bank, Bank of Baroda, Shriram Transport Finance, Welspun Corp and Welspun India are scheduled to announce their July-September quarter earnings today.

Oil prices plunge 5%: Oil prices rose in early trading on Thursday, regaining some of the ground lost in a 5% slump overnight, amid the prospect of tighter short-term supply with two-thirds of U.S. output shut in the Gulf of Mexico as Hurricane Zeta slammed Louisiana, according to Reuters. US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures rose 29 cents, or 0.8%, to $37.68 a barrel, while Brent crude futures rose 25 cents, or 0.6%, to $39.37 a barrel.