Pre- market: 5 stocks in focus

Asian stocks and the Australian dollar rose on Monday as upbeat news from China's factory sector and fresh highs on Wall Street fueled appetite for riskier assets, while crude oil held near nine-month highs as fighting in Iraq intensified.

 

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS gained 0.7 percent by mid-morning. Tokyo's Nikkei .N225 rose 0.4 percent, shaking off early weakness.

 

Back home, the government on Friday pushed through a steep hike in rail passenger and freight fares, the first dose of the "bitter medicine" Prime Minister Narendra Modi has warned is needed to revive the economy.

Here are a few stocks that you need to keep a tab on today

Spirits major Diageo is planning a clean-up of United Spirits Ltd (USL) accounts. This comes ahead of Diageo's move to integrate the Indian firm with its global operations and might lead to a higher provisioning in USL's balance sheet.

 

Essar Oil’s scrip has rallied significantly and outperformed the Sensex in the past three months, currently more than doubling to Rs 108. The stock has been abuzz on news of possible delisting of the company.

 

The S K Todi-led Shrachi Group is set to sell its 32 per cent stake in AMRI Hospitals to the promoters of  Emami Ltd and has appointed Ernst & Young for the deal.

 

 JSW Steel plans on expansion of the Dolvi plant unit. With an opportunity to expand capacity up to 15 million tonnes a year at a much lower cost, the company has decided to enhance capacity initially to 5 million tonnes from the current 3.3 million tones, for a Rs 3,300-crore investment.

 

Sun Pharmaceutical Industries is the latest Indian drug company to have been sued by London-based AstraZeneca for alleged infringement of patents relating to its diabetes drug, Onglyza.