Flat-to-negative start, Infy results eyed

Headlines for the day:

Hero Honda may face supply problems

Essar Steel may issue $500-million foreign bonds

GAIL to invest Rs15,000 crore in new pipelines by 2013

Events for the day:

Major corporate action

Ex-date for dividend of Areva T&D
Ex-date for interim dividend of Hero Honda
Results: Infosys, Essar Oil
For more events, log on to Sharekhan.com

Pre-market report

Global signals

The European shares ended flat on Monday, with banks gaining after a rescue package for Greece helped soothed some nerves over Athens' debt problems, while miners fell as metals prices retreated from earlier highs.

The US stocks closed flat, the Dow industrials closed above 11,000 for the first time in almost 19 months on Monday as expectations of solid first-quarter earnings spurred buying in financial, energy and industrial sectors.

In today's trade, the Asian markets were trading in the negative territory, except Shanghai Composite. As of writing this report, SGX Nifty was trading 16 point lower.

Indian markets

The most awaited event by the investors i.e. the earning season is going to kick off today, with the IT major, Infosys Technologies announcing its results. Infosys numbers should be out before the market starts. The Indian market is expected to open on a flat to negative note owing to the negative Asian cues. However, going into the session, the March quarter results of the Infosys, will set the tone for the market, while the impact of the result will be felt by the other major IT stocks as well.

Commodity cues

In the commodity space, the crude oil prices reported losses for the fifth consecutive day, with the Nymex light crude oil for the May series fell by $0.58 per barrel, whereas in the metals space, the Comex Gold for the May series rose by $0.50 and the Comex Silver for the May series was up by $0.06 to a troy ounce respectively.

Daily trend of FII/MF investment in equities

On April 12, 2010, the FIIs were the net buyers of the Indian stocks to the tune of Rs257.70 crore, whereas the domestic mutual funds, on April 08, 2010, were the net sellers of the stocks to the tune of Rs363.90 crore.