Sensex, Nifty open in the red ahead of Budget 2020 presentation

Benchmark indices on Saturday (February 1) opened in the red ahead of the Budget 2020 with the Sensex falling 200 points and the broader Nifty below 11,950. 

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman today will present her second Budget in the Lok Sabha at 11 am, amid an economic slowdown, which witnessed the country's GDP growth rate slipping to an 11-year low at 5 percent.

Meanwhile, global equity markets posted their biggest weekly and monthly loss since August on Friday as growing concerns about the economic impact of the coronavirus outbreak in China sapped risk appetite and lifted the safe-haven Japanese yen and Swiss franc.

Equity markets tumbled more than 1% as disappointing US and European data pointed to economic weakness and a mixed batch of corporate earnings added to the gloom.

MSCI`s gauge of stocks across the globe shed 1.21%, while emerging market stocks lost 1.11%. The world index has lost 1.2 for January, after gaining as much as 2.6% earlier in the month.

In Europe, the pan-European STOXX 600 index closed down 1.07%. Losses for the week were 3%, its worst in almost six months, while the 1.2% monthly loss was the worst January since 2016.

Early gains in Europe quickly soured as headlines of more cases and deaths, travel bans and factory shutdowns due to the virus were compounded by disappointingly weak economic data. 

On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 603.41 points, or 2.09%, to 28,256.03. The S&P 500 lost 58.14 points, or 1.77%, to 3,225.52 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 148.00 points, or 1.59%, to 9,150.94.

The poor data reading and fears of a spreading virus obscured relatively solid fourth-quarter earnings reports.

Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan extended their fall, dropping 0.4%. Japan`s Nikkei bounced 1%, but was off 2.6% for the week. Hong Kong`s Hang Seng drifted 0.3% lower and has shed 9% in two weeks. Korea`s Kospi had its worst week in 15 months, losing 5.6%.

Sterling extended gains after jumping on Thursday when the Bank of England confounded market expectations by not cutting interest rates.

Sterling traded at $1.3201, up 0.82% on the day. The yen strengthened 0.57% versus the greenback at 108.37 per dollar. The dollar index fell 0.49%, with the euro up 0.53% to $1.1089.

The Australian dollar fell to a four-month low against the U.S. dollar, while China`s offshore yuan struggled to find a footing.

Spot gold rose 0.87% at $1,587.5 an ounce, while U.S. gold futures settled 0.1% lower at $1,587.90.
Oil prices fell, on track for a fourth straight weekly loss.

Brent crude slid 13 cents to settle at $58.16 a barrel. US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) settled down 58 cents at $51.56 a barrel.

(With Agency Inputs)