Top things to look out for in the market today

The Nifty is likely to open flat-to-weak on Monday as overseas cues paint a dismal picture for equities ahead of the US Fed’s meeting later this week.

Traders are unlikely to push the Buy button as they await the judgement of the US Fed’s rates setting panel meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday to discuss the health of the US economy. The SGX Nifty futures point to a 30-point drop in the Nifty in early deals.

The Nifty Index closed at 8,521 points, down 68 points on Friday. Weekly losses totalled to about 1 percent. The Nifty faces resistance in the 8,600-8,637-points band, while support is seen at 8,500-8,400 levels. This is the expiry week as well, hence trading on the Index will be limited to a narrow band.

Markets are also keenly watching steps the government may take to control equity investments via the P-Note route after a report from the SIT directed SEBI to track down the ultimate beneficiaries of such instruments and urged for curbing its misuse.

Meanwhile, global cues continued to be weak. Major Indices in the US closed with weekly losses of 2.5 percent to 2.8 percent. The mood was even more bearish in EU markets, where weekly drops totalled between 1.7 percent and 3.8 percent.

Markets in Asia are trading with caution on Monday, posting minor losses in Japanese, Korean and Chinese equities ahead of the US Fed’s meet. Cues from the commodity space are tepid.

Foreign Institutional Investors raked in measly 7 crore worth of purchases in the cash market on Friday compared with net buys of 196 crore rupees by domestic investors. The derivatives space saw sales worth 36 crore rupees for Index Futures; Sales of 782 crore rupees for Stock Futures; Sales of 322 crore rupees for Index options and sales of 154 crore rupees for Stock Options.

STOCKS TO WATCH:

POWER FINANCE CORPORATION: Government to sell 5% equity via Offer for Sale route.

RELIANCE INDUSTRIES: Reported its best quarterly earnings after 6 years as refining margins soared. First quarter Consolidated Profit after Tax grew 4.4 percent to 6,220 crore rupees. Sales during April-June fell 26 percent to `77,100 crore rupees as global crude oil prices dipped.

BHARTI AIRTEL: Will launch its much awaited 4G-data services in 44 cities ahead of Reliance JIO.

NIIT Technologies: Targets revenue of $1 billion over the medium term.

SUN PHARMA: To raise between $500- $1 billion via offshore bonds bearing maturity of 5-10 years.

TELECOM STOCKS: The government plans to hold another round of spectrum auctions in early 2016.

MEDIA STOCKS: Round 3 of auction for radio waves begins today

SEQUENT, SHASUN, LYKA LABS: Lyka Labs is all set to sell its animal medicines units to a joint venture controlled by Sequent and Shasun.

(Image credits: financialexpress)