Pre-market: Range bound movement likely

Bharti Airtel, Blue Star, Ipca Labs in focus

The markets are likely to remain range-bound with a negative bias today as traders await fresh cues from the European Central Bank and  the US Federal Reserve, both of which hold policy meetings this week.

In other global markets, Asian shares extended losses on Wednesday, as a softer Chinese manufacturing data further undermined the fragile market sentiment.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan fell 0.5 per cent, while Japan's Nikkei stock average slid 1.3 per cent.

Back home, the Nifty is likely to seek support around 5,200 – 5,180, while it can face resistance around 5,260 – 5,280, technical analysts suggest. At 715 am Indian Standard Time, the SGX Nifty was trading at 5,239 – down 0.2 per cent.

In an important political development, P Chidambaram has been appointed as the new Finance Minister. He takes over from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh who had been holding temporary charge after Pranab Mukherjee, who is now President, resigned.

Among individual stocks, Shares in Bharti Airtel could be in focus today on reports that the company is exploring issuing new shares to raise funds, including external commercial borrowings.

Auto stocks will also be in focus as they report their respective July 2012 sales figures.

Titan Industries, Blue Star and Ipca Labs are some of the counters that will react to their June quarter results announced on Tuesday.

Coal India agreed to supply at least 80 per cent of the coal needed to fuel new power projects, a condition earlier set by the government.