Pre-market: Gains seen tracking rally in world stocks

Gains seen tracking firm cues from Asia folllowing a rally on Wall Street and European stocks on Friday

Markets are likely to firm up on Monday tracking gains in Asia and a rally on Wall Street coupled with a better-than-expected growth data from the Euro zone on Friday . Further, investors will be eagerly awaiting details of the interim budget.

At 8:25AM, the SGX Nifty was up 19 points at 6,080.     

In his last Budget speech as finance minister in the UPA-II government, P Chidambaram will have a lot to say on Monday but much of it is likely to be high on intent and low on content.

Ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, interim Budget 2014-15 is likely to be packed with statements promising what the UPA would do if it got the mandate to lead the country for a third consecutive term.

As markets and rating agencies eagerly watch out for fiscal consolidation carried out ahead of the upcoming elections, the finance minister is likely to report a fiscal deficit of around 4.7 per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP), lower than his initial target of 4.8 per cent, helped by a massive cut in expenditure and gains from telecom spectrum auction. He is expected to peg next year’s fiscal deficit at 4.2 per cent. This would be so as Plan expenditure in 2014-15 is likely to be kept intact at the Budget estimate level of 2013-14, at Rs 5.55 lakh crore.

Asian stocks were trading higher on Monday with Hang Seng emerging as the top performer in the region up nearly 1%. Further, Japan's benchmark share index rebounded today after slipping nearly 1.5% on Friday. The  Nikkei was up 0.4%, Straits Times gained 0.7% and Shanghai Composite was up 0.2%.

Shares on Wall Street ended higher on Friday, recording gains for the second straight week, as investors shrugged off weak manufacturing data in January amid disruptive weather conditions.

As per the recent data release, US factory output eased to 0.8% in January, the highest decline in over four and six months.

The Dow Jones ended up 0.8% at 16,154, the S&P 500 gained 0.5% to close at 1,839 and the tech-laden Nasdaq ended up 0.1% at 4,244.

Stocks in Europe ended higher after better-than-expected growth in industrialised nations of Germany and France helped the Euro zone grow 0.3% in the fourth quarter ended December 2013 compared to the third quarter.

The DAX ended up 0.7% at 9,662 and CAC-40 gained 0.6% to close at 4,340 and the FTSE-100 ended with marginal gains at 6,664.


Stocks in Focus

Tours and travel firm Cox & Kings reported over nine-fold jump in net profit to Rs 30.91 crore for the third quarter ended December 31, 2013.

Britannia Industries Limited (BIL), India's leading publicly held food company reported a strong 62 per cent increase in net profit to Rs 100 crore for the third quarter of FY14 as compared to the corresponding quarter of last financial year, backed by robust control of costs and reduction in interest outflow. Consolidated revenue grew 10.2 per cent to Rs 1,772 crore.

The country’s largest steel producer, Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL), posted a 10 per cent increase in profit after tax (PAT) at Rs 533 crore for the financial year’s third quarter (October-December).

Wind turbine maker Suzlon, which under went a restructuring of about Rs 9500 crore debt,  posted a consolidated loss of Rs 1075 crore for quarter ended December as against Rs 1154 crore loss for the same period last year. Revenue rose to Rs 5063 crore in the last quarter as against Rs 4074 crore in the same period last year.

Education services company Educomp Solutions has posted a third quarter net loss of Rs 87.6 crore for the period ended December 31, 2013 compared to net profit of Rs 8.01 crore for the same period last year.

Castrol will be in focus ahead of its fourth quarter earnings due for release later today.