SGX Nifty indicates weak start for Indian indices

SGX Nifty: Trading of Nifty 50 index futures on the Singapore stock exchange indicates that the Nifty could fall over 200 points at the opening bell.

All eyes will be on the Q3 gross domestic product (GDP) data, to be released later in the day, which will shed light on whether the economy continued to be in recession in the third quarter of FY21 or it ended with the second quarter only.

The US markets ended lower on Thursday amid a continued increase in treasury yields, which led to renewed concerns about interest rates despite Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s assurances of ultra-easy monetary policy for the foreseeable future.

The yields on ten-year notes and thirty-year bonds once again rose to their highest levels in a year, with the ten-year yield briefly spiking above 1.6% in intraday trading. The increase in yields came following the release of a batch of largely upbeat US economic data, including a report from the Labor Department showing a steep drop in first-time claims for US unemployment benefits in the week ended February 20th.

The Labor Department said initial jobless claims tumbled to 7,30,000, a decrease of 1,11,000 from the previous week’s revised level of 8,41,000. Street had expected jobless claims to drop to 8,38,000 from the 8,61,000 originally reported for the previous week.

The Commerce Department also released a report showing new orders for US manufactured durable goods spiked by much more than expected in the month of January. The report said durable goods orders soared by 3.4% in January after jumping by an upwardly revised 1.2% in December. Street had expected durable goods orders to surge up by 1.1% compared to the 0.5% increase that had been reported for the previous month.

Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 559.85 points or 1.75% to 31,402.01, Nasdaq dropped 478.54 points or 3.52% to 13,119.43, and S&P 500 was down by 96.09 points or 2.45% to 3,829.34.