Flat-to-negative start likely;RIL,Wipro results eyed

Headlines for the day:

Teaser rates are back

Essar Energy valued at $9.5-11 billion

Atlas, Reliance to buy more shale gas acreage

Events for the day:

Major corporate action

Talwalkars IPO closes today
Nitesh Estates IPO opens today
Results: Reliance Industries, Wipro, MMTC, Areva T&D
For more events, log on to Sharekhan.com

Pre-market report

Global signals

The European shares hit a 3-week closing low on Thursday, with banks slipping as Greek's debt concerns resurfaced and Nokia dropping after it cut its profit outlook.

The US stocks staged a late-day comeback on Thursday as strong quarterly profits from consumer bellwethers like Starbucks Corp outweighed worries about Greece's shaky finances.

In today's trade, the Asian markets were trading in a negative territory, except Shanghai Composite. At the time of writing this report, SGX Nifty was trading 12 points lower.

Indian markets

Subdued start by the Asian indices may pull the Sensex down in the opening hours. India’s largest company by the market cap Reliance Industries and IT major Wipro will announce their earnings today, the stocks will be closely eyed by the investors. The foreign institutional investors (FIIs) inflow has been slowed down in this week, which may be a cause of worry for the short-term traders. Even the Greece' debt concern, which is still not resolved, may act as a dampener. On the other hand, the FIIs inflow and the earnings of the companies, will decide whether the domestic indices will end the week in negative or positive, which has been flat till date.

Commodity cues

In the commodity space, the crude oil prices inches higher as a rebound in equities overshadows demand and global recovery concerns, with the Nymex light crude oil for the May series down by $0.02 per barrel, whereas in the metals space, the Comex Gold for the May series declined by $5.90 and the Comex Silver for the May series was down by $0.06 to a troy ounce respectively.

Daily trend of FII/MF investment in equities

On April 22, 2010, the FIIs were the net buyers of the Indian stocks to the tune of Rs264.80 crore, whereas the domestic mutual funds, on April 20, 2010, were the net buyers of the stocks to the tune of Rs101.90 crore.