The key domestic benchmarks are likely to open in
the red today tracking a sharp decline in fellow Asian markets and a bearish
closing at Wall Street on Friday as investors worried over the freefall in oil
prices. China’s Shanghai Composite tumbled after an economist from the country’s
central bank saw a slowdown in economic growth in 2015 amid weakness in the real
estate sector. Hang Seng fell while Japan’s Nikkei 225 also succumbed to heavy
losses as Japanese manufacturing sentiment worsened in Q4 even as Prime Minister
Shinzo Abe’s ruling party won more than two-thirds of the seats in a lower house
election. Back home, investors will weigh dismal IIP data which showed that
India’s manufacturing fell into sharp contraction, dashing hopes of a near-term
revival in Asia’s third biggest economy. Industrial output contracted by a
massive 4.2 per cent in October 2014 from the same month a year ago, compared to
an annual 2.5 per cent rise expected by analysts. However, consumer inflation
fell to a record low 4.38 per cent in November 2014, raising bets of an interest
cut by the RBI early next year.
