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Markets are likely to witness profit booking after gains in the previous sessions even as gains in IT majors on the back of encourgaing results from Cognizant could stem further downside.
At 8:30AM, the early indicator SGX Nifty was down 13 points at 8,580.
IT majors such as Infosys, TCS and Wipro are likely to firm up after Cognizant on Wednesday reported its best-ever sequential revenue growth and revising its revenue forecast upwards, for the second quarter in a row.
Siemens is likely to gain after the company's net profit zoomed 13 fold to Rs 168 crore for the third quarter of financial year 2015 compared to Rs 13 crore in Q3 2014 due to cost rationalisation process.
GSK Consumer Healthcare may extend gains after the company reported 19% net profit growth at Rs 155 crore for the quarter ended June 30, 2015 compared to the same quarter last fiscal.
Bata India may gain after the company reported 56% growth in net profit at Rs 92 crore compared to Rs 58 crore in the same quarter last fiscal.
PTC India may lose ground after income from operations for the quarter ended June 30, 2015 declined to Rs 3,296 crore compared with Rs 3,689 crore in the same quarter last fiscal.
Ramco Systems may gain after net profit rose 169% to Rs 97 crore for the quarter ended June 30, 2015 as compared to Rs 36 crore for the quarter ended June 30, 2014.
Canara Bank may extend losses after the state-owned bank has posted a 40.7 per cent drop in net profit for the June quarter at Rs 478 crore, on higher provision for bad loans and a dip in the value of bonds.
Motherson Sumi is expected to gain ahead of its results today on the back of analysts forecast of higher revenues and margin improvement during the April-June quarter.
Arvind will also be in focus ahead of its April-June earnings later today.
GLOBAL MARKETS
Major US stock indices ended mixed on Wednesday with the Dow Jones ending flat with a negative bias after lower profit forecast by Disney for its cable business led to profit taking in media shares with Disney slumping over 9%. However, the tech-laden Nasdaq and S&P 500 ended with marginal gains led by technology shares. The Dow Jones ended down 0.06% at 17,540.47 while the Nasdaq gained 0.7% at 5,139.94 and the broader S&P 500 ended up 0.3% at 2,099.84.
Asian markets were trading mixed with the Nikkei gaining after the US dollar strengthened against the yen. Japan's benchmark Nikkei was up 0.8% while China's Shanghai Composite was up 0.4% while Hang Seng was down 0.5% and Straits Times eased 0.1%.
