Before Market Opens: 9 things to know at 9 am ahead of Budget 2023

The Union Budget 2023 will be tabled in the Parliament by finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman today. It will be the last full budget presentation ahead of the 2024 elections. The Union Budget on February 1 will test the government’s resolve to stay fiscally prudent as expectations of lower taxes, wider social security net and further boost to production gather steam before national elections.

Major US stock indexes closed over 1 percent higher on Tuesday as labour cost data encouraged investors about the Federal Reserve's aggressive approach to taming inflation a day ahead of the central bank's critical policy decision. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 368.95 points, or 1.09 percent, to 34,086.04, the S&P 500 gained 58.83 points, or 1.46 percent, to 4,076.6 and the Nasdaq Composite added 190.74 points, or 1.67 percent, to 11,584.55.

Asia-Pacific shares traded higher as investors looked ahead to the Federal Reserve’s Wednesday meeting, as well as some economic data in the region. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 was up 0.71 percent. Japan’s Nikkei 225 gained 0.8% and the Topix climbed 0.7 percent in its first hour of trade. South Korea’s Kospi advanced 0.8 percent and the Kosdaq rose 0.78 percent, as South Korea’s export numbers in January fell 16.6 percent on an annualised basis.

Equity benchmarks the Sensex and the Nifty ended in the green on January 31 after the Economic Survey 2022-23 portrayed an optimistic picture of the Indian economy amid global headwinds. Sensex remained volatile during the session amid weak global cues. Major US, European and Asian indices fell ahead of the US Fed meet outcome later on February 1. Sensex ended 49 points, or 0.08 percent, up at 59,549.90 while the Nifty50 ended the day at 17,662.15, up 13 points, or 0.07 percent.

At 8:20 am, the SGX Nifty was trading 90 points or 0.5 percent higher at 17,842, indicating a positive opening for the Indian markets. 

India's eight core industrial sectors grew by 7.4 percent in December 2022, as against a growth of 3.8 percent recorded in the year-ago period, as per the provisional data released by the Ministry of Commerce & Industry on January 31. The core sector growth is also higher as compared to the previous month, November 2022, when it stood at 5.4 percent. A surge in the output of five segments - coal, steel, cement, fertiliser and electricity - aided the higher growth in December, data showed. The production of coal increased by 11.5 percent on-year, electricity by 10 percent, steel by 9.2 percent, cement by 9.1 and fertiliser by 7.3 percent.

The government's fiscal deficit widened to ₹9.93 lakh crore in the April-December period, accounting for 59.8 percent of the full-year target for 2022-23, data released on January 31 by the Controller General of Accounts showed. The fiscal deficit in the first nine months of the last financial year was 50.4 percent of last year's target.

The rupee depreciated by 36 paise to close at a three-week low of 81.88 against the US dollar on Tuesday after the Economic Survey 2022-23 said the domestic unit may remain under pressure on account of plateauing of exports and subsequent widening of the current account deficit, reported PTI.

As reported by Reuters, gold prices were little changed in early Asian trading on Wednesday, as investors refrained from taking big bets ahead of the US Federal Reserve's interest rate-hike decision due later in the day. Meanwhile, India's gold consumption in 2022 fell 3 percent from a year earlier, as a rally in local prices to near-record highs curtailed bullion demand during the key December quarter, the World Gold Council (WGC) said on Tuesday.