GIFT Nifty down 45 points; here's the trading setup for today's session

«Escalating situations in the Middle East would likely keep market sentiments subdued. Thus, we advise investors to stay cautious in the near term,» said Siddhartha Khemka, Head — Retail Research, Motilal Oswal.

Here's breaking down the pre-market actions:

STATE OF THE MARKETS
GIFT Nifty (Earlier SGX Nifty) signals a negative start
GIFT Nifty on the NSE IX traded lower by 45 points, or 0.23 per cent, at 19510, signaling that Dalal Street was headed for negative start on Friday.

• Tech View: Nifty is trading near the 50-day SMA (Simple Moving Average). For the traders now, the 50-day SMA or 19625 would act as a trend decider level. Above the same, we could see a technical bounce back till 19700-19735 levels. On the flip side, below 19625 the index could retest the level of 19520-19480.
• India VIX: India VIX, which is a measure of the fear in the markets, fell 0.62% to settle at 10.90 levels.

US stocks drop
U.S. stocks ended solidly lower on Thursday, with shares of Tesla falling after its results and Treasury yields surging as Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell spoke about monetary policy and investors worried whether interest rates would stay higher for longer.

• Dow falls 0.8%,
• S&P 500 down 0.9%,
• Nasdaq dips 1%

Asian shares decline
Asian stocks declined into a third day following falls on Wall Street as tensions escalated in the Middle East, driving gold and oil to further advances. Meanwhile, traders weighed Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell’s remarks for any clues on the policy outlook.

• S&P 500 futures fell 0.3% as of 9:32 a.m. Tokyo time. The S&P 500 fell 0.9%
• Nasdaq 100 futures fell 0.3%. The Nasdaq 100 fell 0.9%
• Hang Seng futures were little changed
• Nikkei 225 futures (OSE) fell 0.8%
• Japan’s Topix