Before Market Opens: 9 things to know at 9 am on December 22, 2022

Wall Street's three main stock indices closed higher on Wednesday for their biggest daily gains so far in December with help from upbeat Nike and FedEx quarterly earnings, as well as improving consumer confidence and easing inflation expectations from investors. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 526.74 points, or 1.6 percent, to 33,376.48, the S&P 500 gained 56.82 points, or 1.49 percent, to 3,878.44 and the Nasdaq Composite added 162.26 points, or 1.54 percent, to 10,709.37.

Asia-Pacific shares traded higher, carrying on the optimism on Wall Street as stocks saw a boost from upbeat earnings and a strong consumer confidence reading. Japan’s Nikkei 225 added 0.35 percent in early trade, while the Topix gained 0.38 percent. The Japanese yen weakened slightly by 0.11 percent to stand at 132.32 against the US dollar. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 was up 0.53 percent.

The Sensex and the Nifty domestic equity benchmarks suffered strong losses on December 21 even as global markets were mostly positive.Sensex opened 291 points higher at 61,993.71 amid positive global cues but failed to hold gains. It plunged 764 points to an intraday low of 60,938.38. The index finally closed 635 points, or 1.03 percent, lower at 61,067.24 while the Nifty ended 186 points, or 1.01 percent, down at 18,199.10.

At 8:20 am, the SGX Nifty was trading 103 points or 0.56 percent higher at 18,353, indicating a gap-up opening for the Indian markets. 

Oil prices rose by more than $2 a barrel on Wednesday after data showed a larger-than-expected draw in US crude stockpiles, but gains were capped by a snowstorm that is expected to hit US travel.Brent crude futures for February delivery were up by $2.21, or 2.76 percent, at $82.20 a barrel, while US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures gained $2.06, or 2.7 percent, to $78.29.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Shaktikanta Das is of the opinion that a premature pause in the monetary policy rate hike course would prove to be a costly policy error at this juncture, showed the minutes of the Monetary policy committee (MPC) meeting held between December 5 to December 7. Given the uncertain outlook, Das added that we might find ourselves striving to do a catch-up through more vital policy actions in the subsequent meetings to ward off accentuated inflationary pressures.

Gold prices were little changed during early Asian hours on December 22, as market participants awaited economic data for further direction, reported Reuters.

The rupee slipped 6 paise to settle at 82.82 per dollar in the previous session on December 21 amid weakness in the domestic equity market. Meanwhile, the dollar eased ahead of the key US data.

Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) sold shares worth ₹1,119.11 crore, while domestic institutional investors (DIIs) purchased shares worth ₹1,757.37 crore on December 21, as per provisional data available on the NSE.