Pre-market: Shares seen opening higher, Q3 earnings key

U.S. stocks rallied Thursday as upbeat reports on the economy offset mixed corporate results

Markets are likely to mirror cues from global peers and open in the green this morning. The result season, both in India and globally, would decide market direction from there on.

US stocks rallied on Thursday, with the Dow closing near a 5-year high,as upbeat reports on the economy offset mixed corporate results. The Dow Jones surged 0.63% to 13,596. The Nasdaq and S&P moved up over half a per cent each.

In Asia, markets traded mostly in the green. Nikkei added 2% to 10,835 - taking its monthly gain to almost 8%. Shanghai Composite, Hang Seng and Taiwan Weighted also went up 1% each. At 7:00 hrs IST the SGX Nifty was up 26 points at 6,080.

Among individual stocks, watch out for companies which will announce their results today, including HDFC Bank, ITC and Reliance Industries.

Naveen Jindal-owned Jindal Steel & Power, which is building a six million tonne per annum greenfield steel plant at Angul, expects to commission two mtpa capacity of the project by April this year. This could bring the stock into focus.

Watch out for Nalco as it is setting up its second wind power plant in Jaisalmer district of Rajasthan with a capacity of 47.6 MW.

Tata Consultancy Services announced it had entered into a long-term agreement with Nokia, a global leader in mobile communications, to help transform its IT landscape. Watch out for shares of TCS today.