The equity benchmarks, the BSE Sensex and the NSE Nifty, are set to fall in opening trade on Tuesday, following negative trends across Asian markets and a subdued finish on Wall Street overnight. The weak trends on SGX Nifty also indicated a gap-down opening for the domestic bourses, with SGX Nifty futures trading 100 points, or 0.6%, lower at 16,472 on the Singapore Stock Exchange at 8:10 AM. The expectation of an interest rate rise by the Reserve Bank to curb surging inflation will also keep investors on edge.

On Monday, the domestic bourses ended marginally lower for the second consecutive session, amid looming fear about a rate hike by the Reserve Bank as well as mixed global cues. The market witnessed cautious trading ahead of the credit policy announcement on Wednesday. The BSE Sensex ended 94 points, or 0.2%, lower at 55,675, and the NSE Nifty 50 index settled at 16569, down 0.1%. The worst performers on the BSE Sensex pack were Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), Asian Paints, L&T, Housing Development Finance Corporation (HDFC), Axis Bank, and HDFC Bank.

Stocks to watch

SpiceJet: Low-cost airline on Monday said it will retrain 90 pilots on Boeing 737 Max aircraft, days after the aviation regulator fined the airline for training pilots on a faulty simulator. The carrier said that these pilots will undergo re-training after the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA).

NMDC: Steel ministry will convene a meeting of shareholders and creditors of the state-owned company today to expedite the process of demerging the company's under construction Nagarnar Steel Plant (NSP).

Tata Power: The power arm of Tata group has inked a pact with real estate company Kolte-Patil Developers Ltd (KPDL) to set up e-charging stations across its projects in Pune, Mumbai and Bengaluru.

Angel One: Domestic brokerage has claimed that its customer base crossed the 10 million mark in May, more than double in the past 12 months. Last month, the company added more than 0.47 million new customers, taking its overall customer base to 10.10 million.

Adani Enterprises: West Bengal Industry Minister Partha Chatterjee has said the state government has given its nod to the Adani Group company for setting up a hyper-scale data centre at Bengal Silicon Valley in the New Town area on the outskirts of the city.

Tata Motors: The auto major has signed a deal with BluSmart Mobility - the country’s largest fully-electric ride-hailing service firm – for delivering 10,000 Xpres-T electric vehicles (EVs). The company claimed that it was the biggest-ever EV fleet order in India.

Here are the key things investors should know before the market opens today:

Wall Street ends tad higher

In the overnight trade, the U.S. indices ended marginally higher in choppy trade, driven by gains in growth stocks such as Amazon and Apple Inc, while looming fear over inflation and aggressive rate hikes limited the market’s gain. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.05%, the S&P 500 added 0.31%, and the Nasdaq Composite ended 0.4% higher.

Asian stocks edge lower

Shares in the Asia-Pacific region were trading mostly lower, barring Japan, in opening deals on Tuesday as investors remained concerned about a rate hike by the central banks globally to contain boiling inflation. A solid U.S. jobs report on Friday raised fear that the Federal Reserve may continue its aggressive policy-tightening stance to fight inflation.

Regional heavyweight Japan’s Nikkei 225 was the best performer in the regional market with a 0.4% gain.

South Korea’s KOSPI dropped 1.3%, the Straits Times Index in Singapore shed 0.1%, and Australia’s ASX 200 fell 0.8% ahead of RBA’s rate decision.

The Hang Seng index in Hong Kong fell 0.6% and Taiwan’s Weighted index dropped 0.7%.

In mainland China, the Shenzhen Component and the Shanghai Composite fell 0.5% and 0.3%, respectively.

Crude prices up around $120

The price of Brent and U.S. crude edged higher in early trade on Tuesday and hovered around $120 levels after Saudi Arabia raised prices sharply for its crude sales in July. The price hike was announced even after the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies (OPEC+) in its last policy meeting agreed to increase output in July and August by 648,000 barrels per day, or 50% more than previously planned.

In Asian trading hours, the Brent oil for July delivery was up 0.85% to $120.4 per barrel, while the U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude July futures rose 0.7% to $119.3 a barrel.

FIIs, DIIs data

The foreign institutional investors (FIIs) continued their selling spree in the Indian equity market on June 6, while domestic institutional investors (DIIs) continued to support the market. As per the exchange data, FIIs net sold shares worth ₹2,397.65 crore, while DIIs net purchased shares worth ₹1,940 crore.

The foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) have so far withdrawn ₹1.69 lakh crore from Indian equity market in 2022. Continuing its selling spree for the eighth straight month, FPIs pushed out nearly ₹40,000 crore in May.