Nifty Seen Opening Above 17,900; L&T Infotech, Bajaj Auto In Focus

The Indian equity benchmarks are set to open lower as indicated by the Nifty Futures traded on Singapore Exchange. The Nifty Futures on Singapore Exchange also known as the SGX Nifty Futures fell 0.38 per cent or 69 points to 17,909 amid positive global cues. Asian share markets broke a five-day slide to edge higher on Thursday, shrugging off drops in Europe and on Wall Street overnight as China underscored its diverging monetary and economic picture by cutting benchmark mortgage rates, news agency Reuters reported.

China's blue-chip CSI300 index rose 0.7 per cent on Thursday morning and Hong Kong's Hang Seng added more than 1.4 per cent. The rise in Chinese shares boosted MSCI's broadest index of Asian shares outside Japan which added 0.54 per cent.

Seoul's Kospi edged 0.1 per cent higher and Australian shares fell by the same margin. In Tokyo, the Nikkei added 0.17 per cent.

Overnight, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.96 per cent and the S&P 500 lost 0.97 per cent. The Nasdaq Composite dropped 1.15 per cent, putting it more than 10 per cent below its Nov. 19 record closing high to confirm a correction.

Back home, foreign institutional investors sold shares worth Rs 2,705 crore on Wednesday ad domestic institutional investors sold shares worth Rs 195 crore.

Bajaj Auto will be in focus after it reported a 17 per cent decline in its consolidated profit after tax to Rs 1,430 crore for the third quarter ended December  2021 on account of lower sales.

The company had posted a consolidated profit after tax of Rs 1,716 crore in the October-December period of 2020-21 fiscal.

L&T Infotech will be on investors' radar after its net profit advanced 18 per cent to Rs 612 crore in December quarter. Its revenue from operations rose 31 per cent to Rs 4,137.60 crore from Rs 3,152.80 crore in the same quarter last year.