Resuming their descent!

"The gates of Hell are open night and day; smooth the descent, and easy is the way: but, to return, and view the cheerful skies; in this, the task and mighty labor lies." - Virgil.

The cheerful skies are seeing a colour change. After a small breather, world equity markets have resumed their descent. A downward revision in US’ Q3 GDP is adding to the already bleak global backdrop. But, the US indices didn’t witness sharp cuts. They were down marginally. European benchmarks also closed in the red following a spike in Spanish and Belgian bond yields. Meanwhile, the Fed has announced a new set of stress tests for US lenders. Minutes of the last FOMC meeting show that the central bank is mulling inflation targets.



The opening will be lower. Asian stocks are mostly down, although the Chinese market is showing some resilience. Japanese markets are shut for a holiday. For India, the big worry right now is the relentless slide in the Rupee. This has increased the headache for policymakers who have their hands full with a whole host of problems. The first day of the winter session hasn’t inspired much confidence either. Hopefully, things will improve on this front.

SKS Microfinance will be in focus amid reports of top-level reshuffle.

FIIs were net sellers of Rs 9.52bn (provisional) in the cash segment on Tuesday, according to NSE data. The domestic institutional institutions (DIIs) were net buyers of Rs 10.65bn on the same day.

The foreign funds were net buyers of Rs 3.08bn in the F&O segment on Tuesday, NSE data shows.

FIIs were net sellers at Rs 6.01bn in the cash segment on Monday, according to SEBI web site. Mutual Funds were net buyers of Rs 2.12bn in the cash segment on the same day.

Global Data Watch: US personal income & personal spending report, US durable goods orders, weekly jobless claims, Reuters/Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index (Nov), Bank of England (BOE) minutes, China's provisional manufacturing PMI, Germany's provisional manufacturing PMI, EU's provisional manufacturing PMI, Germany's provisional services PMI and EU's provisional services PMI.

Australia’s lower house of parliament has passed a legislation for a 30% tax on coal and iron-ore profits. BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto Group and others may have to pay about A$11 billion ($10.8 billion) in extra charges in the first three years of the so-called Mineral Resource Rent Tax, or MRRT.

China International Capital Corp. has reportedly warned in a recent report that Chinese banks are likely to see an increasing number of loans go bad during the first half of 2012.

The HSBC China manufacturing gauge (provisional) has fallen to 48.0 from 51.0 last month.