Indian shares may rise: Indian shares are poised to open slightly higher on Thursday following a break in a six-session winning streak in the previous session, while Asian markets showed modest gains, particularly driven by a rally in Japanese stocks.

As of 8:11 am, GIFT Nifty was trading at 22,150, indicating that the NSE Nifty 50 will open above its previous close of 22,055.05.

Both the Nifty 50 and BSE Sensex lost approximately 0.6 per cent each on Wednesday as domestic investors opted to book profits after six consecutive sessions of gains, during which the benchmarks surged by 2.7 per cent.

On Wednesday, domestic institutional investors (DII) ended a seven-session buying streak by offloading shares worth Rs 412 crore ($50 million) on a net basis. 

Conversely, foreign investors turned net buyers after two sessions, acquiring shares worth Rs 285 crore.

Information technology (IT) stocks, which experienced losses on Wednesday and are closely linked to the United States (US) market, will be under scrutiny again after the Federal Reserve's latest policy meeting minutes revealed concerns among most policymakers about the risk of premature rate cuts. 

However, the likelihood of a rate cut in June remained largely unchanged following the minutes.

In overnight trading, Wall Street equities displayed mixed performance, while Asian markets opened marginally higher, with the MSCI Asia ex-Japan index adding 0.1 per cent. 

Japan's Nikkei 225 index reached a record high, driven by surging Japanese technology stocks following strong earnings and optimistic growth and demand forecasts from US chipmaker Nvidia.

Stocks to Watch 

Balrampur Chini Mills, Shree Renuka Sugars, Dalmia Bharat Sugar, EID Parry: The government hiked sugarcane fair and remunerative price (FRP) for 2024-25 season starting October.

Eureka Forbes: Large shareholder Lunolux is likely to divest up to a 12 per cent stake for Rs 1,149 crore, through block deals, according to reports.

Brigade Enterprises, PVP Ventures: The companies plan to develop a residential project, with a revenue potential of 20 billion rupees.

NBCC: The company got in-principle approval for furtherance of existing projects in Amrapali for about Rs 10,000 crore.

(With Reuters Inputs)