Sensex, Nifty Set To Follow Asian Peers Lower

(RTTNews) - Indian shares are seen opening lower on Friday as traders return to their desks after a holiday the previous day on account of Eid al-Fitr.

A cautious undertone may prevail as hotter-than-expected U.S. CPI data prompted traders to scale back bets for a slew of U.S. interest-rate cuts this year.

Tech stocks could be in focus today ahead of TCS's Q4FY24 results due later in the day.

Meanwhile, the Asian Development Bank has increased India's GDP growth forecast for FY25 to 7 percent from the earlier 6.7 percent and said that robust growth will be driven by the demand for public and private sector investment and the gradual improvement in consumer demand.

Asian markets were broadly lower this morning as the United States added six Chinese companies to an export blacklist, accusing them of seeking to acquire AI chips for China's military or helping to procure droves for use by Russia. Upcoming Chinese trade data also remained on investors' radar.

Japanese stocks bucked the weak trend as the yen struggled to break away from a 34-year low versus the dollar and headed for a weekly decline.

The dollar index hovered near a five-month high while oil gained about 1 percent on heightened geopolitical tensions in the Middle East.

Gold also traded up nearly 1 percent below $2,400 per ounce as investors pondered the possibility of an attack on Israel by Iran or its proxies.

U.S. stocks rebounded overnight following Wednesday's selloff on concerns surrounding stubborn inflation and the outlook for interest rates.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite jumped 1.7 percent to a new record closing high and the S&P 500 climbed 0.7 percent as a measure of producer price inflation for March came in below estimates.

The Dow ended essentially unchanged as more Fed officials indicated there is no rush to cut rates.

European stocks closed lower on Thursday as the ECB opened the door to a rate cut in June but gave little forward guidance.

Not committing to a specific rate trajectory, the central bank said it would maintain a data-dependent and meeting-by-meeting approach to determine the appropriate level of interest rates.

The pan European STOXX 600 declined 0.4 percent. The German DAX dropped 0.8 percent, France's CAC 40 eased 0.3 percent and the U.K.'s FTSE 100 shed half a percent.