Indian shares may follow other Asian markets lower on Thursday after Federal Reserve chief Ben indicated the central bank could slow down its pace of asset purchases going forward. Trading for the rest of the day would largely depend on the movement of the rupee, which fell for a fourth day to hit a fresh six-month low of 55.46 against the dollar yesterday.
Benchmark indexes Sensex and the Nifty fell about 0.3 percent each on Wednesday, as engineering & construction giant Larsen & Toubro posted disappointing Q4 results and investors awaited Bernanke's speech later in the global day.
In corporate news, Japanese pharmaceuticals major Daiichi Sankyo said that it is initiating legal steps against certain former shareholders of Ranbaxy Laboratories for concealing and misrepresenting critical information on the probe by U.S. agencies.
Mukesh Ambani-controlled Jio Infocomm said it plans to invest Rs. 3,000 crore in West Bengal over a two-year period for rolling out its 4G wireless broadband services.
Oil marketing companies would be in focus after the government asked the Parikh committee to submit its report within two months on switching over to export parity pricing.
NCC (formerly Nagarjuna Construction) reported an over two-fold jump in its fourth-quarter consolidated net profit to Rs 12.3 crore.
Asian Markets
Asian stocks are broadly lower, with Bernanke's comments weighing on the markets. Also, a preliminary survey of purchasing managers showed that China's manufacturing activity contracted for the first time in seven months in May. The markets in Australia, China, Hong Kong and South Korea are down between 0.6 percent and 1.8 percent, while Japanese shares are modestly higher, benefiting from further weakness in the yen.
U.S. And European Markets
U.S. stocks fell sharply overnight after minutes from the latest U.S. Federal Reserve meeting showed some officials were open to scaling back stimulus measures as early as June. In response to questions from lawmakers, Fed chief Bernanke also indicated that the central bank may scale back bond buys "in the next few meetings" if the economic recovery continued. The Dow slid half a percent, the tech-heavy Nasdaq fell 1.1 percent and the S&P 500 dropped 0.8 percent.
In economic releases, a report from the National Association of Realtors showed a modest increase in existing home sales in April to their highest annual rate in over three years.
European stocks closed Wednesday's session in positive territory reacting to Bernanke's initial comments that a premature tightening of monetary policy carries a substantial risk of slowing or ending the economic recovery. Benchmark indexes in France, the U.K., Germany and the Switzerland rose between 0.4 percent and 1.1 percent.
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