Market seen range-bound, flat in the coming week

The Indian equities market is expected to remain range-bound as no major domestic trigger is seen to effect the positive investor sentiment, analysts said .

However, the market will keenly watch the quarterly results season for July-September period which starts next week with Infosys coming out with its numbers.

"The major trigger for next week will be the results seasons. Global factors such as the slow economic growth in Europe and China and other geo-political conditions would also be watched with interest," said Dipen Shah, head- private client group research, Kotak Securities.

"Inflation data is also one of the major trigger that the markets will keep an eye out for as it is released."

The country's retail inflation slowed down to 7.8 percent in August from 7.96 percent in the previous month.

Shah's views were corroborated by Davendra Nevgi, chief executive, ZyFin Advisors who told IANS that due to weak global cues markets will watch developments like price drops in gold and oil keenly. Apart from the recent euphoria in the US market due to the strong employment numbers.

The US Labor Department reported this week that the economy created 248,000 jobs last month, its strongest performance since the pre-financial crisis days.

Crude oil prices continued to decline after Saudi Arabia's state-run oil company cut prices.

Gold prices too dropped significantly to be sold below $1,200 an ounce for the first time this year.

The Indian equities markets had posted marginal losses in the current truncated week as profit booking led to volatile trade.

The benchmark Sensex was marginally down by 0.21 percent in the week ended Oct 1 from its previous weekly close on Sep 26. The index closed at 26,567.99 points, while it had ended trade at 26,626.32 points on Sep 26.

In the previous week the 30-scrip Sensitive Index had lost 1.71 percent in the week ended Sep 26 from its previous weekly close on Sep 19. The index closed at 26,626.32 points, while it had ended trade at 27,090.42 points on Sep 19.

The week under review saw the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) maintaining key interest rates in its bi-monthly monetary policy.

RBI said that the country is currently positioned to reach the inflation target of six percent by January 2016.

It has retained the economy's growth projection for current fiscal at 5.5 percent and said the future policy stance will be influenced by the inflation outlook.

However, the RBI's decision did not dampen the markets which had factored in the eventuality of the RBI holding policy rates. In fact, the benchmark index made marginal gains.

The Indian markets will resume trade on Tuesday (Oct 7).