Markets likely to open flat; bank stocks in focus

Bank stocks will be in focus after the the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday passed the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code Bill

Markets are likely to open flat with bank stocks in focus after the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday passed the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code Bill.

At 8:35am, the early indicator SGX Nifty was down 4 points at 7,869.


Global Markets

Asian stock markets were trading lower tracking overnight losses on Wall Street and crude oil futures came off their highs after rising earlier on the back of decline in US crude oil inventories. The Shanghai Composite was down over 1%, Hang Seng eased 0.7% while the Nikkei was down 0.4%. However, the Straits Times was trading flat with positive bias.

US stocks ended lower on Wednesday on the back of sluggish earnings from Disney and retailing major Macy's. The Dow Jones industrial average ended down 1.2% at 17,711, the broader S&P 500 ended down 1% at 2,064 and the Nasdaq ended down 1% at 4,761.

Stocks

Bank stocks will be in focus after the Rajya Sabha passed the Insolvency and Bankruptcy code Bill, enabling a single law to deal with distressed companies, their promoters, creditors, employees and other stake holders for the first time in India.

Share of pharma companies could see some pressure amid reports that the National Pharmaceuticals Pricing Authority has introduced price ceiling on 48 drugs and also revised retail prices of six other drugs.

Apollo Tyres could see some pressure after it reported a 20% decline in net profit for the quarter ended March 31 while its revenues declined over 5% due to rising tyre imports from China. The company's net profit declined to Rs 245 crore, impacted by an inventory adjustment of Rs 140 crore.

Oracle Financial Services could see some pressure after net profit for the March 2016 quarter declined to Rs 224 crore compared with Rs 230 crore in the same quarter last year.

Dr Reddy's Labs will be in focus ahead of its March quarter earnings later today.

Wipro may firm up after the IT major announced a strategic partnership with Etiya, a leading independent software vendor.

Asian Paints may firm up after the company reported in-line numbers for the March quarter (Q4). Healthy volume growth, estimated at 12-13 per cent, in the domestic decorative paints segment, with continued improvement in industrial paints demand aided revenue.