Indian Shares Set For Cautious Open

(RTTNews) - Indian shares look set to open on a cautious note Monday as traders return to their desks after a long holiday weekend.

Amid concerns over cost pressures and supply chain issues stemming from the U.S.-Iran war, investors await cues from Q1 earnings for direction.

There is some respite on the monsoon front, with the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) announcing that the southwest monsoon is advancing on time or slightly ahead, covering key southern states and parts of the Northeast.

Developments on the geopolitical front may also remain on investors' radar.

After two nights of renewed hostilities, the United States and Iran have agreed to halt military strikes against each other and meet on Tuesday in Doha, Qatar, to resolve tensions over the Strait of Hormuz.

Earlier, Iran had attacked commercial vessels in the Gulf, prompting U.S. strikes on Iran's air defense sites, drone facilities and mine-laying capabilities.

Iran retaliated with strikes on U.S. bases in Bahrain and Kuwait before both sides agreed to halt strikes and meet this week.

Elsewhere, Hezbollah's leader on Saturday pilloried the Israel-Lebanon framework agreement as "null and void" and warned its implementation would trigger civil war.

The Israeli military has targeted and destroyed Hezbollah's underground infrastructure in southern Lebanon.

Last week, benchmark indexes Sensex and Nifty extended their winning streak to a third week on the back of falling crude oil prices and selective FII buying.

Asian markets were mixed this morning amid broad-based selling in semiconductor and AI-related stocks.

The U.S. dollar was on the back foot but headed for its biggest monthly gain in nearly a year due to renewed Gulf tensions and uncertainty over the Federal Reserve's monetary policy.

Gold was subdued at $4,067 an ounce on inflation concerns, with investors awaiting the key U.S. nonfarm payrolls report and the upcoming annual central banker confab at Sintra, Portugal, for further direction.

Brent crude prices climbed above $72 a barrel, after having hit a four-month low last week.

U.S. stocks ended off their day's lows on Friday as lower oil prices on signs of improving shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz offset concerns over artificial intelligence (AI) spending and escalating memory and storage costs.

Investor sentiment was weighed down by Elon Musk's rocket company SpaceX seeing its valuation drop and reports suggesting that Open AI, the maker of ChatGPT, was leaning toward holding off its highly anticipated IPO until next year.

The Dow and the S&P 500 both finished marginally lower while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite slipped 0.2 percent due to changing expectations around U.S. monetary policy.

European stocks closed firmly lower on Friday as tech stocks mirrored global weakness.

The pan European Stoxx 600 fell 0.7 percent. The German DAX lost 1.3 percent, France's CAC 40 shed 0.6 percent and the U.K.'s FTSE 100 eased 0.2 percent.