Markets likely to open flat; IT shares in focus

Markets are likely to open flat, amid mixed cues from Asia, with IT majors in focus ahead of the fourth quarter earnings from Tata Consultancy Services later today.

At 8:40AM, the early indicator SGX Nifty was up 2 points at 8,779.

"After series of up move, equity markets lost nearly a percent in a volatile trading session on Wednesday. Initially, sentiments were positive tracking improvement in CPI inflation figure, which was announced post market on Monday. The positivity was reflecting in the banking counters as a majority of the stocks were trading in green. However, sudden fall in the last half an hour across the board including banking, changed the entire picture and pushed the domestic bourses in red," said Jayant Manglik, President-retail distribution, Religare Securities.

"Though this profit was impending after the recent up move in last two weeks but pace of decline caught the participants’ completely off-guard. Having said that, our overall positive bias is still intact so we suggest traders to maintain buy on dips approach till the Nifty upholds above 8550 spot level," he adds.

Further, foreign institutional investors were net buyers in equities to the tune of Rs 108 crore on Wednesday, as per provisional stock exchange data.

Global Markets

Asian shares were trading mixed on Thursday tracking overnight gains on Wall Street. Shares in Japan witnessed profit taking after the dollar declined on the back of weak US economic data. The Nikkei was down 0.5% while Straits Times was down 0.2%. However, shares in China were up 0.7% and Hang Seng was up 0.1%.

Major US share indices ended higher on Wednesday led by energy shares amid a rebound in crude oil prices while hopes that earnings would not be weak as earlier expected also boosted sentiment. The Dow Jones industrial average ended up 76 points at 18,112.61, the broader S&P 500 gained 11 points at 2,106.63 and the tech-laden Nasdaq gained 34 points to close at 5,011.02.

Stocks in focus

TCS is likely to remain subdued ahead of its fourth quarter earnings later as the street expects the IT major to report sluggish revenue growth.

Sugar stocks will be in focus after Food Minister Ramvilas Paswan on Wednesday said his department would soon recommend increasing the import duty on sugar to 40 per cent from the current 15 per cent to bring down the surplus,

 
Eicher Motors will be in action after the RBI approved hike in foreign investment limit in the company up to 49% of the paid-up capital.

Hero MotoCorp may be in focus with regards to its investment of $25 million in  Erik Buell Racing, Inc., a Delaware corporation ("EBR"), through a wholly owned subsidiary in Delaware, U.S.A. by the name of HMCL (NA), Inc. The company said, EBR and Subsidiary will also be ceasing their operations with effect from today.

Gammon India will be in focus after the company said it has bagged two projects worth over Rs 800 crore.