Top Stock Market action to look out for today

The Nifty is seen range-bound on Monday as major earnings are out of the way and overseas cues give little in terms on strong movements on either side. Top indices closed with losses for last week pointing to a bearish stance in the overall market. Keep an eye out for Tata Motors which reported numbers after markets closed on Friday.

The SGX Nifty signals a 25-point drop at opening for Nifty futures today.

Global cues are weak to negative. Major Indices in the US fell between 0.3-0.4 percent on Friday. Their weekly losses totalled 1.3-18 percent. Top indices turned bearish as well in Europe slipping between 0.4-0.8 percent on Friday even as they stacked up weekly gains worth 0.2-1.6 percent. The commodity space shows little or no signs of life. All four major components trade lower today. Gold Futures slipped for the 6th day, to fresh 5-1/2 year lows; Oil Futures are below $44 a barrel. Bears retain control over the metals complex. And stocks in Japan and Hong Kong have a light shade of red while stocks in China are in a fine fettle on Monday morning.

Meanwhile, the Nifty Index closed at 8,564 points, down 24, on Friday. Weekly gains totalled 0.4 percent. The Nifty's support levels have moved up to 8,550-8,500 levels while the resistance continues to be seen at the 8,637 point level. The Sensex posted similar weekly gains as the Nifty.

The sentiment remains was flat in the cash market on Friday with little or no trade done. Foreign Institutional Investors totalled net sells of `94 crore rupees on Friday, their 1st negative number in 5 days. Net purchases of domestic institutions stood at `34 crores. The derivatives space was muted too. Traders made net purchases worth 85 crore rupees for Index Futures; Net sales of 502 crore rupees for Stock Futures; Purchases of `243 crore rupees for Index options and net purchases of 16 crore rupees for Stock Options.

Major delivery based trades were seen on ONGC, HPCL and BPCL in the energy space, as also in Exide, Dewan Housing, Oracle, Grasim and KSCL. These shares also showed an uptick in price. BHEL and Glenmark saw high deliveries coupled with a drop in price.


STOCKS TO WATCH:

EARNINGS-Based: Tata Motors, MRPL, Rural Electrification, UCO Bank, Punjab & Sind Bank, Central Bank of India, Sobha Developers, Balkrishna Industries, Ramkrishna Forgings.

THOMAS COOK: Buys out Kuoni's Indian and HK operations for 535 crore rupees.

Image credit: Indiatimes