Key Indian stock indices landed in negative territory on Thursday, February 20 as traders await more clarity about Donald Trump’s comments ahead of his trip to India. In particular, Trump said he was not confident that the trade deal with India will be finalized before the US presidential election in November. Notably, Indian markets will be offline tomorrow in observance of a national holiday, while Trump’s Indian trip is scheduled to begin on February 23. Moreover, investors are digesting Fitch Ratings’ latest forecast that the country’s real GDP growth is set to slow to 4.6% y-o-y for the fiscal year ending March 31 compared to 6.8% y-o-y for the year-earlier period. Meanwhile, the external backdrop was mixed as Asian markets showed patchy dynamics, while European bourses saw ambivalent performance with negative sentiment prevailing. Recapping the benchmarks, the Nifty 50 retreated 0.37% to 12,080.85, and the BSE Sensex slipped 0.37% to 41,170.12. By 10:45 GMT, the USD/INR currency pair added 0.09% to 71.657, while EUR/INR ticked up 0.02% to 77.3650. The 10-year Indian government bond yield widened 0.03% to 6.411%. As regards individual stocks, pharmaceutical and biotechnology player Cipla underperformed the broader market, shedding 2.6%. On the other side of the ledger, lender IndusInd Bank showed robust gains, up 3.5%. The daily chart shows a mixed picture on the BSE Sensex that requires additional signals for investors to see where the benchmark could be heading in the short term.