It’s a falling Friday at start as indices brace for a big gap-down. The seemingly endless bloodbath in world markets continues and it’s a no-brainer that the source of continued trepidation is Greece and growing concern about the possible spread of the debt contagion to Spain and Italy.

Borrowing costs for Spain surged even as official data has confirmed a recession. Bankia shares crashed on reports of large deposit withdrawal. Moody's has downgraded 16 Spanish banks as well as 4 Spanish regions.

Steep drop in commodities, especially crude, is a positive. But, unfortunately for India the crash in the rupee has eroded much of those gains. The fragile rupee is also likely to make it tough for India Inc. to repay overseas debt. Export-oriented sectors could benefit though from a weaker rupee.

Risk remains a dangerous word for now and safety is top priority. The dollar and treasuries remain safe havens. Even gold has not been spared. The 10-year US bond yield is at record low. Stock indices in the US and Europe continue to tumble while Asian markets are shaky. In short, the trend remains down with 4800 on the Nifty under threat. Coal India, SBI and Tata Steel will announce their results.

While Greece, facing fresh elections and a possible eviction from the eurozone has dominated headlines, uncertainty over the deteriorating state of Spain's banking sector has raised the prospect of an international bailout.

Sentiment towards Spain is turning worse by the day, mainly because of a loss of confidence in the Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy government's approach to tackling the problems in the banking sector. Spain is facing a prolonged slump as the turbulent eurozone struggles to balance austerity with growth.

Key Results Today: Alok Industries, Coal India, Deepak Fertilizers, Hindustan Oil Exploration, HT Media, Karnataka Bank, Manappuram Finance, Panacea Biotec, Petron Engineering, Saint Gobain, SBI, Tata Steel, Torrent Pharma and TV Today.

Trend in FII flows: The FIIs were net sellers of Rs 96.7mn in the cash segment on Thursday while the domestic institutional investors (DIIs) were net buyers of Rs 2.54bn, as per the provisional figures released by the NSE.

The FIIs were net buyers of Rs 3.72bn in the F&O segment on Thursday, according to the provisional NSE data.

The foreign funds were net sellers of Rs 4.81bn in the cash segment on Wednesday and the mutual funds were net sellers of Rs 190mn on the same day, according to the SEBI figures.

Global Data Watch today: G8 Meeting, Germany Producer Price Index (Apr), US America Petroleum Institute Monthly Report and Canada CPI.