Steady start, don’t rush to buy

Truly successful decision making relies on a balance between deliberate and instinctive thinking. - Malcolm Gladwell.

After several days of downward spiral, the key Indian indices finally managed to close positive. The broader market continued to be under pressure though. Even for the frontline indices, it was a bit of a struggle. So, one isn’t sure to what extent we are out of the woods. The intermediate trend might still remain down or at best rangebound in the near term. It will take a few positive days with better volumes to move northwards confidently. The past couple of weeks has been particularly stormy for the Indian market in the face of a string of negative events.



We see a steady to positive start today and perhaps a better day ahead. There are no cues from Wall Street as the US markets were shut on account of the Martin Luther King Jr. day. European benchmarks finished pretty flat after a lackluster day. Asian markets were down on Monday, led by a steep fall in China but they seem to have recovered today. The result season is starting to gather momentum. So far the earnings reports have been quite mixed. But watch out for TCS, which has delivered another stellar quarter.

Bajaj Finserv, Cadila, Concor, DCB, Exide, Gail, HT Media, ING Vysya Bank, Ibull Power, Ibull Realty, Mastek, Mindtree, Petronet LNG, NIIT Tech and Opto Circuits will declare their numbers today.

Meanwhile, a Cabinet reshuffle is on the cards this week. We could also hear from the EGoM on fuel prices. A slew of Chinese economic statistics are also due later this week. Eurozone issues appear to have ebbed for now but policymakers have delayed a decision on enhancing the emergency bailout fund.

Infosys and other IT stocks will be in focus amid reports of a Rs 4bn demand from the Income Tax department. HCC is another stock to keep an eye on amid reports of possible environmental violation at Lavasa. Tata Steel, ONGC, SAIL, PFC and Jindal Power could be in action due to news about their forthcoming public issues. Indiabulls Real Estate and Indiabulls Power will attract attention post the announcement of a business restructuring.

FIIs were net sellers of Rs 1.73bn in the cash segment on Monday, according to the provisional NSE data. The domestic institutional institutions were net buyers at Rs 3.59bn. FIIs were net buyers of Rs 4.92bn in the F&O segment. The foreign funds were net sellers of Rs 6.94bn in the cash segment on Friday, according to the SEBI web site.