Pre-market: Market to open flat eyeing WPI, Fed, RBI

Market is headed for a flat to negative start as investors await key macroeconomic data slated to be released today among other local and global cues this ahead.

At 8.45am, the Nifty Futures at the Singapore Exchange (SGX Nifty) was trading at 6182.50 down 13.50 indicating a flat to negative start initially.

Market participants will keenly watch the Wholesale price inflation (WPI) data to be released later in the day.  Experts are of the view that WPI numbers will set the tone of the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI's) monetary policy scheduled on December 18. Earlier, consumer price-indexed inflation (CPI) or retail inflation rose to a nine-month high of 11.24% in November, prompting many to think that RBI could raise repo rates by 25bps to check the inflation.

The RBI's mid quarter monetary policy review and the US Federal Reserve's meeting which could take a call on tapering its 85-billion-a-month bond buying program, would be the key triggers for market this week. 

The Fed will hold its two-day Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday, followed by a press conference by Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke. The US central bank is expected to decide a timeline for the dialing back of its stimulus package, termed Quantitative Easing-3. The signs of improvement in US economic data could see the Fed announcing a withdrawal or a reduction in its $85-billion bond-buying programme at the FOMC meet.

The central bank has decided to unveil fresh norms to put pressure on banks to identify stress in the system at the earliest, while incentivizing those that do so.

A high-level working committee of RBI officials, reporting directly to the governor's office, will issue a discussion paper on corporate distress and financial restructuring. The move follows a sharp rise in non-performing assets (NPAs), as well as debt restructuring, mostly for public-sector lenders over the past couple of years. Banks' average gross NPAs as of September 2013 stood at 4.2 per cent of their gross advances - a sharp increase from 3.4 per cent a year ago - according to RBI data. Public-sector banks account for 86 per cent of the banking system's total NPAs.

Among other major news, South Africa held a state funeral for Nelson Mandela on Sunday, closing one chapter in its tortured history and opening another in which the multi-racial democracy he founded will have to discover if it can thrive without its central pillar.

The Nobel peace laureate, who was held in apartheid prisons for 27 years before emerging to preach forgiveness and reconciliation, was honoured with a mixture of military pomp and the traditional rites of his Xhosa abaThembu clan. The funeral at Qunu in Eastern Cape province drew 4,500 guests, from relatives and African leaders to Britain's Prince Charles, American civil rights activist Reverend Jesse Jackson and talk show host Oprah Winfrey