Pre-market: Higher opening seen on strong global cues

Markets are likely to open on a positive note amid strong global cues.

Markets are likely to begin the first trading day of the week on positive note amid strong global cues.

At 8:30AM, the SGX Nifty was up 20 points at 6,097.

Asian stocks were trading with strong gains tracking global markets which saw major US stock indices rallying over 1% each on Friday.

The Nikkei and Shanghai Composite were up over 1% while Straits Times was marginally up and Hang Seng was trading flat with negative bias.

US Stocks surged to end over 1% higher on Friday shrugging off lower-than-expected US jobs data. In January 113,000 jobs were created in January against an expectation of 185,000 while December payrolls saw an upward revision by 1,000 to 75,000.

The Dow Jones jumped 166 points or 1.1% to close at 15,794, the broader S&P 500 rose 24 points or 1.3% to end at 1,797 and the tech-laden Nasdaq Composite ended 69 points higher or 1.7% at 4,126.

European shares ended with marginal gains on Friday after data showed that US unemployment rate dropped to its lowest level in five year to 6.6%.

The FTSE-100 gained 13 points or 0.2% to end at 6,572, the DAX rose 45 points or 0.5% to 9,302 and the CAC-40 ended 40 points higher at 4,228.


 
STOCKS IN FOCUS

Tata Motors, Jaiprakash Associates and NMDC will be in action ahead of their results later today.

Thomas Cook and Sterling Holidays will be in action after they announced merger of the two companies. The part equity, part merger deal is estimated to be around Rs 870 crore.
The companies said the merger will conclude by the end of 2014 subject to regulatory approvals.

Reliance Communications will be in focus after it posted a 2.8 per cent growth in the third quarter net profit to Rs 108 crore against Rs 105 crore in the same quarter last year.

Corporation Bank will see some pressure after it registered 58.21% decline in net profit to Rs 126.69 crore for October-December period of the current financial year mainly due to higher provisioning for bad loans.

Jet Airways may also witness sellling pressure after it reported a third successive consolidated quarterly loss of Rs 283 crore in the December quarter of the current financial year as against Rs 93-crore profit in the corresponding period last year.

Engineers India will be in action after the government’s 10 per cent share sale in the company through a follow-on public offer was fully subscribed on Friday, and is set to fetch the exchequer about Rs 500 crore.

United Bank of India will see some pressure after it reported a Rs 1,238-crore loss in the three-month period ended December, as compared to Rs 42.2 crore profit during the corresponding period of the previous year on the back of Rs 1,858-crore provisioning.