Market Ahead, June 26: All you need to know before the opening bell

The Indian markets are set to open with gains today after a late surge on the Wall Street. The SGX Nifty was up around 60 points at 7:30 AM, and was indicating an open above 10,300 levels for the Nifty today. 

On the Wall Street, the main indexes closed higher overnight. The Dow Jones rose 1.18 per cent, the S&P 500 gained 1.10 per cent, and the Nasdaq Composite added 1.09 per cent.

Asian stocks also ticked up on Friday. Australian ASX200 rose 0.8 per cent in early trading, Japan's Nikkei added 0.9 per cent. Hong Kong's Hang Seng index, on the other hand, was down half a per cent.

The gains, however, might be capped by the continuously increasing tally of Covid-19 cases. India yesterday saw a sharp spike of over 18,000 new Covid-19 cases, taking the country's total count of infections to 4.91 lakh while the death toll crossed 15,000, according to Worldometer. WHO has said that it expects the number of Covid-19 cases across the globe to reach 1 crore next week.

Meanwhile, investors will also react to the corporate results announced after market hours yesterday. Ashok Leyland reported a loss of Rs 57 crore as against profit of Rs 653 a year ago. Revenue for the quarter stood at Rs 3,838 crore.

Today, a total of 250 companies, including ITC, Coal India, and Glenmark Pharma are scheduled to announce their March quarter earnings.

According to analysts, ITC is expected to post up to 14 per cent decline in its cigarette volumes due to hike in excise duty and Covid-19 induced lockdown.

On the macro front, investors will keep an eye out for the current account data for the fourth quarter.

Now, let's look at some other top news

The Sebi yesterday relaxed the pricing norms for preferential issuances to ease the capital-raising process for listed companies. The new pricing formula will enable the issuance of new shares at recent stock prices. The Sebi board has also decided to amend the prohibition of insider trading rules.

A one-time restructuring of loans for India Inc may figure in discussions at the RBI's central board meeting today, which will be the first since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. In a webinar yesterday, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman also that a one-time loan restructuring facility for non-MSMEs was under active consideration. She also said the government would consider extending the Rs 3-trillion emergency line of credit to include individual proprietors. 

The CBI yesterday filed a chargesheet against YES Bank co-founder Rana Kapoor and 11 others. CBI had earlier registered the case for alleged cheating, fraud, criminal conspiracy in sanctioning of loans by YES Bank and in exchange receiving kickbacks by Kapoor from DHFL promoter Dheeraj and Kapil Wadhawan.