The Indian market is seen opening flat to slightly lower on Friday in tandem with weak Asian markets, notwithstanding positive U.S. data on housing starts and jobless claims. Trading could remain range-bound amid alternate bouts of buying and selling.
Finance secretary Sunil Mitra has expressed concern about slowdown in corporate advance tax collection. He said the RBI's decision to hike its short-term lending and borrowing rates by 25 basis points has further compounded the problem. The advance tax collection from the top 100 companies in the Mumbai region went up by around 14 percent, nearly half the level recorded in the previous quarter, reports released yesterday showed.
In stock-specific action, Tata Steel could be in focus after it decided to divest its entire 26.72 percent stake in Riversdale Mining to Anglo-Australian mining group Rio Tinto for A$1060 million (Rs.5,011.68 crore).
In another significant event, the 13-day-old strike at car maker Maruti Suzuki's Manesar plant in Gurgaon by the newly formed Maruti Suzuki Employees Union ended on Thursday night after the management agreed to reinstate all 11 sacked employees.
On Wall Street, stocks saw considerable volatility before ending on a mixed note overnight following a mixed batch of economic data, including a report from the Philadelphia Federal Reserve which provided further evidence of weakness in the U.S. manufacturing sector. The tech-heavy Nasdaq posted a modest loss, falling by 0.3 percent to a three-month closing low, while the Dow rose half a percent and the S&P 500 edged up 0.2 percent.
A Labor Department report showed a bigger than expected drop in first-time claims for unemployment benefits in the week ended June 11th, while data on hosing starts showed a modest increase in new residential construction in May.
Crude oil prices for July delivery rebounded a bit on Thursday after the previous session's setback to end up 14 cents at $94.95 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Back home, the benchmark indexes Sensex and the Nifty extended their recent losses to end down 0.81 percent and 0.93 percent, respectively on Thursday after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) sounded a little bit hawkish in post-policy statements, leaving room for further hikes in interest rates in the coming months.
A sell-off in global equity markets on worries over Greece's deepening debt woes and deteriorating near-term global growth prospects also rattled investors.
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