Market focus on corporate earnings this week

Focus of the domestic markets will be on earnings that are likely to  kick start from this week. Besides this there will be a range of domestic and global factors, including macroeconomic data, crude prices, currency fluctuations and trade tariff tussle that will impact the markets. Performance of Q4 result will be an important factor for the markets as also industrial output data which will be released on Thursday.  

IT major Infosys will announce its fourth quarter results on April 13. Among other firms which are slated to announce their financial results are Reliance Industrial Infrastructure and Goa Carbon. Globally, concerns over global growth owing to trade war triggered by Trump tariff threat continue to remain. Escalating trade standoff between the US and China may continue to impact financial markets negatively.

On technical levels, the underlying trend of the National Stock Exchange's (NSE) Nifty50 remains bullish. Technically, the Nifty is now in an uptrend and further upsides are likely once the immediate resistance of 10,350 points is taken out. Crucial supports to watch for any weakness is at 10,208 points.

Indian stock markets gained last week as the RBI projected a higher growth rate for the on-going fiscal and also lowered the retail inflation forecast going ahead. Last week, the apex bank had raised the economic growth target to 7.4 per cent for 2018-19 fiscal from 6.6 per cent for the last fiscal and lowered retail inflation projection to 4.7-5.1 per cent for the first half of the current fiscal.

Last week the 30-scrip Sensitive Index (Sensex) of the BSE gained a massive 658.29 points or almost 2 per cent to close at 33,626.97 points. The wider Nifty50 of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) closed trade at 10,331.60 points — up 217.9 points or 2.15 per cent from its previous week’s close. It was the second consecutive week of gains for the Nifty, the top sectoral gainers were auto, pharma, PSU banks and realty indices. Monetary policy announced by the RBI, improving macro-economic scenario and expectations of normal monsoon were the main triggers for the second consecutive week of gains.

Provisional figures from the stock exchanges showed that foreign institutional investors sold scrips worth Rs 1,363.95 crore, while the domestic institutional investors purchased stocks worth Rs 2,660.52 crore during April 2-6.

Posted by Digamber Lokhande