Equities in India fell 322.4 points or 0.5% to a near two-week low of 71,249.3 in morning deals on Monday, after rising in the prior day, weighed by losses from oil & gas, realty, and financial services. Traders were cautious ahead of releases of January retail inflation figures later today after the RBI kept key interest rates for the 6th consecutive meeting last week. Reuters poll showed India's inflation rate slowed to a three-month low of 5.09% in January amid a slowdown in food prices and favourable base effects. Investors anticipated the US inflation figure for January due Tuesday that could guide the Fed's monetary policy decision. Coal India shrank 1.1% ahead of releasing Q3 earnings results today. Hero MotoCorp dropped 3.6% despite the company posting a surge in net profit. ONGC was down 3.4% after registering a 7.9% yoy fall in consolidated net profit for Q3. Other companies that will announce Q3 results later today are Glaxo, Zee Media Corp, and Maruti Infrastructure.
US stock futures held steady on Monday as investors look forward to another set of key economic releases and earnings reports this week. On Friday, the S&P 500 rose 0.57% and closed above the 5,000 level for the first time, while the Nasdaq Composite jumped 1.25%. Meanwhile, the Dow fell 0.14%. Those moves came as BLS data showed that CPI increased 0.2% month-over-month in December, less than 0.3% initially reported. All three benchmarks ended the week higher, led by a rally in the technology, consumer discretionary and communication services sectors. Investors now look ahead to US inflation data this week, as well as retail sales and consumer confidence figures. On the corporate front, earnings are set to come from Shopify, DraftKings, Arista Networks, Coinbase and Datadog, among others.
