Jittery markets look forward to Yellen for breather

Stock investors and traders, hoping for some respite from the recent sell-off by foreign institutional investors (FIIs), are looking forward to Janet Yellen's testimony before US lawmakers on Tuesday, her first as US Federal Reserve Chairman.

With the US jobs data in January weaker-than-expected, emerging market participants, who have borne the brunt of the Fed's recent moves to cut its bond-buying programme, are hoping Yellen would signal a longer life for the programme, known as quantitative easing.

In India, investors will closely watch key data including inflation and industrial production for hints on improvement in the economy. Key indices - the Sensex and Nifty - fell less than a per cent last week, but analysts said the investor sentiment is much worse than what the decline in the benchmarks show. Optimists hope the Nifty will not fall below the 6,000-mark going by the extent of put writing at that level. The Nifty closed at 6,089 on Friday.

So far in February, FIIs have net-sold equities worth Rs 1,353 crore. Although domestic institutional investors (DIIs) have stepped in to stem the declines with net purchases worth Rs 2,847 crore, that has not been enough to assuage investors.