Global & local cues that will impact Nifty today

In the US, the Dow and S&P 500 closed higher for the day and the week following an upbeat government jobs report and amid ongoing "fiscal cliff" negotiations, while the Nasdaq finished in the red, dragged by Apple's sharp decline. For the week, the Dow rallied 0.99 percent; the S&P 500 added 0.13 percent, while the Nasdaq fell 1.07 percent. The CBOE volatility index slipped And on economic data front, the monthly non-farm payrolls rose by a surprising 146,000 versus an expectation of 93000. The unemployment rate slipped to 7.7 percent in November. Meanwhile, the consumer sentiment index tumbled to 74.5 from 82.7 in a preliminary December. There are no signs yet of any breakthrough in the fiscal cliff logjam.. Instead in a clear indication of hardening of stance, house speaker and republican leader John Boehner said that President Barack Obama had decided to slow walk the US economy right off the fiscal cliff. European shares closed flat in volatile trading Friday following a pair of mixed economic reports from the US, while Germany’s lowered growth outlook put a lid on gains. In Germany, the central bank has cut its growth forecasts for the economy. The Bundesbank now expects the German economy to grow by 0.7 percent this year, down from its earlier forecast of 1 percent. The forecast for 2013 is more worrying. The Bundesbank expects growth of just 0.4 percent, down from the previous projection of 1.6 percent. Political uncertainty once again in Italy after Prime Minister Mario Monti said he is going to step down ahead of the end of this term. His decision to call for polls once the 2013 budget is approved after the party of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi withdrew their support from Monti's government. Berlusconi also said that he would make another run for Prmie Minister in the next polls. Monti did not say whether he would run in the next election. Greece's debt buy back offer ended over the weekend with bankers and officials saying that the deal went well. Athens offered to buy back around 30 billion euros in bonds as it saw to lower its debt levels. According to sources, Greece raised about 25-27 billion euros and may re-open the buy back for a short period for additional bids from Greek banks to make up for the short fall.