Investors will track global cues and coronavirus-related newsflow for market direction today. They might also react to the news reports that the Centre was considering several states' request to extend the nationwide lockdown beyond April 15. According to a Business Standard report, the Union government and states are expected to have a coordinated view on the matter.

Meanwhile, the number of Covid-19 cases in India jumped to 5,311, with 150 deaths reported. Globally, it has infected more than 1.3 million people and killed over 76,000.

Besides, Icra Ratings yesterday sharply cut India's GDP forecast amid the Covid-19 crisis. The rating agency now expects the economy to grow at just 2 per cent in the current fiscal. It said the nationwide lockdown announced to contain the coronavirus outbreak has impacted industries and their operations have come to a standstill.

Now, let's have a look at global cues.

Wall Street traded firm for majority of the session on Tuesday only for the rally to evaporate in the closing minutes. As such, major US indexes ended the session lower. The S&P 500 lost 0.16 per cent, the Nasdaq Composite dropped 0.33 per cent and Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.12 per cent.

After US stock markets closed, President Donald Trump said the United States may be getting to the top of the coronavirus curve.

Asian stock markets were mixed on Wednesday. While Hong Kong slipped 0.8 per cent and Australia was down half a per cent, Japan's Nikkei was up 0.5 per cent.

In commodities, oil prices also gave up early gains to fall sharply as weekly data showed a crude glut grew more than expected. Hopes the world’s biggest producers would agree to cut output were overtaken by anxiety that a deal would not emerge. Brent crude was trading at $32.83 a barrel.

Yesterday, the Indian markets jumped nearly 9 per cent to record the biggest percentage-wise gain since 2009..

According to analysts, Nifty has decisively surpassed the resistance of 8600 and confirmed the bullish inverse head and shoulder pattern on the daily line charts. Support for Nifty has now shifted up to 8360 while next upside targets for Nifty are seen at 9000 and 9390.

For today, the SGX Nifty was down over 100 points at around 7 am so expect a weak start for the Indian indices.

And, in the end, here's a stock idea by HDFC Securities which recommends buying Maruti at Rs 4,536 for the target of Rs. 5,000 with stop-loss at Rs 4300.

Read by: Kanishka Gupta