Market likely to get a flat-to-positive start

Headlines for the day:

GAIL in talks with Interoil for stake in Papua New Guinea project

L&T bags Rs 977-crore defence order

Biocon arm in pact with Endo Pharma

Events for the day:

Major corporate action

Shree Ganesh Jewellery House IPO closes today
Goenka Diamond & Jewels IPO opens today
Intrasoft Technologies IPO opens today
Engineers India to consider bonus and stock split today
Ex-date for rights issue of Adani Enterprises in the ratio of 1:16
Ex-date for bonus issue of Empower Industries India in the ratio of 23:2
Ex-date for final dividend of ACC
Ex-date for dividend of Foods & Inns

Pre-market report

Global signals

The European markets ended marginally higher on Monday, March 22, 2010, except FTSE 100, with banks and oil majors offsetting gains as investors reassess worries over debt problems in Greece.

The US markets gained on Monday, boosted by gains in the healthcare sector as passage of a bill to overhaul the system eased uncertainty for investors.

In today's trade, all the Asian indices are trading in the green zone, except Nikkei, as fall in the euro on a report saying, Greece may seek aid from the International Monetary Fund in April. At the time of writing this report, SGX Nifty was trading 34.50 point higher.

Indian markets

The Indian indices are likely to open flat to positive note on the back of mixed signals from the Asian markets. The Sensex snapped a four-day winning streak and dropped nearly 1% on Monday, owing to the global market scenario on Reserve Bank of India (RBI) increasing benchmark interest rates and Greece debt crisis. The Indian markets are expected to remain volatile throughout the session.

Commodity cues

In the commodity space, the Crude oil prices reported gains after the two consecutive session of losses, with the Nymex light crude oil for the April series up by $0.57 per barrel, whereas in the metals space, the Comex Gold for the April series declined by $8.10 and the Comex Silver for the May series was down by $0.09 to a troy ounce respectively.

Daily trend of FII/MF investment in equities

On March 22, 2010, FIIs were the net buyers of the Indian stocks to the tune of Rs393.50 crore, whereas the domestic mutual funds, on March 19, 2010, were also the net buyers of the stocks to the tune of Rs101.80 crore.