10 things to know before opening bell on December 31

SUMMARY

Indian shares may open flat on Friday as global peers traded mixed. The Singapore-based SGX Nifty Futures, an early indicator of Nifty50's performance, indicated a flat start for the domestic market as it declined to 17,289, down 50 points or 0.3 percent, at 7:55 am. Among major pre-market cues today, S&P 500 and Dow Jones closed lower than record highs, crude oil lost ground, and Bitcoin is up 2 percent.

By CNBCTV18.comDec 31, 2021 8:18:35 AM IST (Published)

Wall Street: A late slide pulled stocks in the red on Wall Street Thursday, leaving S&P 500 slightly below the record high it set a day earlier. It fell 0.3 percent. The Dow Jones fell 0.2 percent, and tech-heavy Nasdaq fell over 0.2 percent.

Asian equities: Asian shares were trading mixed Friday. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan is up over 0.6 percent. Japan's Nikkei index closed 0.4 percent lower Thursday and remained closed for trading Friday. Chinese blue chips were up 0.4 percent. Hong Kong’s HSI rose half a percent. South Korea’s Kospi was also closed on Friday. Elsewhere, Australian shares were down 0.4 percent.

D-Street: The Indian shares closed marginally lower as Sensex declined 12 points to 57,794. And the Nifty50 index settled at 17,203, down 10 points.

Crude oil: Oil prices slipped into the red Thursday. On Friday, the Brent crude was flat at $79.32 and the US oil declined 0.9 percent to $76.32.

Rupee: The rupee closed 29 paise higher Thursday to a one-month high of 74.42 against the US dollar following year-end selling by banks and exporters amid muted domestic equities. Meanwhile, the dollar index rose 0.26 percent to 96.18.

Gold: Gold futures on MCX Thursday rose by Rs 30 to Rs 47,839 per 10 grams. Silver futures for delivery in March also rose by over Rs 280 to Rs 47,839 per kilogram. Both precious metals were rising in the international market Friday, with gold at $1,817 and silver at $23.11 per ounce.

Bitcoin: Bitcoin surged 1.5 percent Friday to trade above $47,000, recovering some losses after three days of straight decline. The coin is down over 8 percent over the past seven days. Ether prices also rose over 2 percent to $3,700.

FII/DII outflows: Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) sold Indian equities worth Rs 975.2 crore, though domestic institutional investors made net purchases of Rs 1,006.9 crore, according to provisional exchange data.

Fiscal deficit target: The government is set to undershoot the fiscal deficit target by 20 bps at 6.6 percent.

Pre-budget meet: States in the pre-budget meet demanded continuing the compensation cess, which is expiring in June 2022, by another five years because they have not been able to stabilise their revenues post-GST implementation.