Indian markets witnessed strong volatility oscillating between gains and losses and settled with marginal gains on Thursday as investors adjusted their positions ahead of the February F&O expiry. Today, markets are likely to get an optimistic start of the new month reacting to the broadly positive cues from global markets as well as India’s encouraging GDP growth data. India's Q3 GDP registered a higher-than-expected 8.4 per cent growth largely led by government capex spending. On the back of good performance by the sectors such as construction, mining & quarrying and manufacturing, India’s economic growth has witnessed significant upswing. Also, the National Statistical Office (NSO), which releases the data, revised upwards FY24 growth estimate to 7.6 per cent from the 7.3 per cent projected in January. Foreign fund inflows likely to aid sentiments. Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) net bought shares worth Rs 3,568.11 crore on February 29, provisional data from the NSE showed. Traders will be taking encouragement as Chief Economic Adviser V. Anantha Nageswaran said India’s post-pandemic robust economic momentum will continue for the fourth year in a row with a likely 7% expansion in the next financial year. He added the growth will be supported by an expected normal monsoon, better rural demand, improved private and public investment. Some support will come as retail inflation for industrial workers eased to 4.59 per cent in January compared to 4.91 per cent in December 2023 mainly due to lower prices of certain food items. Food inflation stood at 7.66 per cent in January 2024 against 8.18 per cent in December 2023. Besides, the Centre has approved the release of two installments of tax devolution amounting to Rs 1.42 lakh crore to 28 states to bolster their ability to fund various social welfare and infrastructure development schemes. However, there may be some cautiousness as the government data showed that India’s core sector output, which measures production by eight key industries, grew by 3.6 per cent in January, a 15-month low. A lower growth of 0.7 per cent was recorded in October 2022. Meanwhile, the Centre’s fiscal deficit came in at 63.6% of the revised estimate (RE) in the first ten months of the current financial year compared with 67.8% of the respective target in the year-ago period, largely due to a decline in spending in January while tax revenues remained on track. Auto stocks will be in focus reacting to their monthly sales numbers.  There will be some reaction in stocks related to agriculture sector as the agriculture ministry said production of food grains in the 2023-24 crop year (July-June) is estimated to decline by 6% to 309.34 million tonne (MT), from 329 MT in previous crop year, because of decline in rice and pulses output. Oil & gas sector stocks will be in limelight as the government hiked its windfall tax on petroleum crude to Rs 4,600 per ton from Rs 3,300 with effect from March 1. Windfall tax on diesel has been cut to zero from 1.50 per litre.

The US markets ended higher on Thursday after PCE inflation rose 0.3 per cent on a monthly basis, in line with expectations. Asian markets are trading mostly in green on Friday despite Japan's factory activity shrank at the fastest pace in over three-and-a-half years in February, a private-sector survey showed on Friday, as weakening demand worsened the economic outlook.

Back home, Indian equity markets ended in green in a highly volatile trade on Thursday amid a fag-end recovery due to buying in Power, PSU and Basic Materials stocks. The markets opened on a flat note and consolidated for most part of the day amid the scheduled monthly expiry of derivative contracts. Investors also eagerly awaited India’s Q4 GDP data to be out later in the day. Some concern also came with a report by SBI Research stating that the Indian economy is likely to grow at 6.7-6.9 per cent in December quarter FY24 as compared to 7.6 per cent growth in the second quarter on poor performance in the farm sector. Traders also remained worried as Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) in its latest data showed that foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows in India declined 13 per cent to $32.03 billion in April-December 2023, dragged down by lower infusion in computer hardware and software, telecom, auto, and pharma sectors. FDI inflows stood at $36.74 billion during the corresponding nine months of the preceding fiscal. Adding to the pessimism, the provisional data from the NSE showed foreign institutional investors (FIIs) net sold shares worth Rs 1,879.23 crore on February 28, 2024. However, some buoyancy emerged by the end of the day, as traders found solace with economic think tank National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) in report stating that high frequency indicators reveal that the Indian economy remains resilient with Purchasing Manager's Index (PMI) for services accelerating and manufacturing regaining momentum. Some support also came with Minister of Petroleum & Natural Gas and Housing & Urban Affairs Hardeep Singh Puri’s statement that India has emerged more resilient at a time when advanced economies are struggling to bounce back from the devastating impacts of the pandemic and added that India is already the fifth-largest economy in the world, and soon will become the third-largest economy. Finally, the BSE Sensex rose 195.42 points or 0.27% to 72,500.30 and the CNX Nifty was up by 31.65 points or 0.14% to 21,982.80.