Top stock market action to look out for today

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The Nifty is likely to remain rangebound-to-flat on Friday as traders refrain from taking long positions ahead of the weekend and cues from overseas remain muted. Action is likely to be concentrated on earnings related stocks as a 3-month high on the Index makes for cautious trading.

The Nifty ended at 8,590, down 44 points on Thursday. The Index faces a resistance zone in the 8,637-8,737 levels on daily charts and has a strong support at 8,567-point level. The Parliament continues to be in a logjam with both the Ruling BJP and the Oppositions refusing to budge from their extreme positions.

Shares closed weak overnight on Wall Street with major Indices dipping between 0.5-0.7 percent. The trend remained sideways even as US weekly Jobless Claims plunged to a 40-year low as the economy gained strength of the past 6 years. The trend was flattish in European markets where the Indices closed nearly unchanged on Thursday. Stocks in Asia are in a mild downdraft on Friday morning with shares in Japan and Hong Kong posting minor losses while those in China edging up.

Cues from the commodities space give respite to equities: US crude oil Futures slipped to lowest levels since March 31, trading below $49 a barrel. Gold Futures hit their lowest since March 2010 on sustained selling for the 11th day in a row. US Dollar Index, at a 3-month high, edged lower. Copper dipped to lowest in 2 weeks.

Meanwhile, foreign funds remained net buyers again in the cash market, making purchases worth 185 crores on Thursday. They were counterbalanced by net sales of 277 crore rupees by the domestic institutions. The sentiment was decidedly bearish in the derivatives space with `584 crores worth of sales in Index Futures; `358 crores worth of sales in Stock Futures; Index Options saw net sales of `984 crores and Stock Options faced sales of `11 crores on Thursday.

(Image credit: Indiatimes)