The key domestic benchmarks are likely to witness a bearish opening
today after exit polls showed that the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is set to form the
government in the state of Delhi, marking the first major setback for Prime
Minister Narendra Modi since the BJP’s massive win in the Lok Sabha Polls in May
last year, and creating an air of policy uncertainty in Asia’s third biggest
economy. A muted trend across most Asian markets may also weigh on sentiment as
poor Chinese trade data raised concerns over the health of the world’s second
biggest economy, overshadowing a surge in hiring in the US in January. China’s
Shanghai Composite and Hang Seng fell after imports slide 19.9 per cent, year on
year in January 2015, the biggest slide in more than five years, while exports
fell 3.3 per cent. Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose as a weaker yen boosted the appeal of
exporter stocks while American employers created more than 200K jobs for the
twelfth straight month in January 2015 as the US job market capped off the
biggest three-month hiring gains in 17 years. Non-farm payrolls in the US rose
by 257,000 in January, beating expectations of a 230,000 gain. Back home,
investors will be eying the advance estimates of the Q3 FY 2014-15 GDP data
today on the basis of revised methodology.
