Opening Bell: Here’s what you need to know before the market opens on October 18, 2021.

The bulls fairy tale on the D-Street is likely to continue amid a decent performance by HDFC Bank.

Indian benchmark indices will resume trading after a long weekend as Friday was a holiday on account of Dussehra. The SGX Nifty indicates that the fairy tale of the bulls is likely to continue on D-Street. The long weekend will not derail the momentum of the bulls as market participants will be rejoicing from the fact the major private sector lender HDFC Bank displayed a good performance in Q2. The SGX Nifty indicates that Nifty would open the day up by 31 points at the 18,435 level.

Cues from Asian markets: Majority of the Asian markets were seen trading in red on the first trading day of a fresh week. China’s Shanghai Composite is down by 0.69% after data released showed that the GDP of China grew at 4.9% in Q3 which is the slowest in a year in the third quarter. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was down by 0.44% and Japan’s Nikkei has dipped 0.23%.

Overnight cues from US markets: All the three US stock indices signed off the week on a buoyant note with the Dow leading from the front as it has jumped over 1%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq rose by nearly 0.50% and the S&P 500 added 0.1%. Strong earnings propelled the markets higher on Friday. For the week, Nasdaq outperformed its counterpart as it jumped over 2%, the S&P 500 registered its best weekly gain since July as it has gained 1.82% and the Dow advanced 1.58%. 

Last session summary: On Thursday, Indian benchmark indices scaled to fresh record highs on the back of buying witnessed almost across the board. The Nifty and Sensex settled the day above the 18,300 and 61,300 mark, respectively. Among the sectoral indices, barring Nifty Auto, all other sectoral indices ended in green.  

FII’s and DII’s activity on Thursday: The DIIs continued to be the net sellers for the fifth straight day as they sold to the tune of Rs 1,750.59 crore, on other hand, FIIs were the net buyers for the second day in a row to the tune of Rs 1,681.60 crore.

Important events to watch out for: On the earnings front, Larsen & Toubro Infotech, Route Mobile and Tata Coffee will be in focus.