Positive start likely; RBI’s policy in focus

Headlines for the day:

Mining firms ride the profit boom

ArcelorMittal eyes stake in Ferro Alloys Corp

JSW acquires control of South African coal mining company

Events for the day:

Major corporate action

RBI’s quarterly monetary policy review today
Ex-date for Interim dividend of Nissan Copper
Results: GTL, Axis Bank, Zee Entertainment, HCL
For more events, log on to Sharekhan.com

Pre-market report

Global signals

The European equities ended lower on Monday, with banking stocks falling on Friday's fraud charges against Goldman Sachs and airlines slipping on a fifth day of cancellations due to volcanic ash.

The US stocks rose late on Monday as investors reassessed the potential damage of the fraud case against Goldman Sachs and earnings optimism grew.

In today's trade, the Asian markets were trading on a positive note, except Shanghai Composite. At the time of writing this report, SGX Nifty was trading 7.5 points higher.

Indian markets

The Indian Indices are likely to open on a higher note on the back of positive Asian cues and as the investor sentiment across the globe turned good on hopes of better earnings declaration. Yesterday, post the market, Hero Honda and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) announced their Q4 numbers, which were above the street expectations. Thus, we might see some momentum in these stocks.

However, going in the session, the results of HCL Technologies, Axis Bank, GTL are to be announced later by the day, which might affect the future course of the day. We expect the market to remain volatile as the case in the previous last five sessions, as investors will keenly look forward to the Reserve Bank of India (RBIs)' monetary policy, which is scheduled later today. The street expects a 25-50 basis points hike in interest rates.

Commodity cues

In the commodity space, the crude oil prices tumbled on Monday for the third straight trading day as investors reacted to the fraud charges against Goldman Sachs and the strength of the dollar, with the Nymex light crude oil for the May series declined by $1.79 per barrel, whereas in the metals space, the Comex Gold for the May series down by $1.10 and the Comex Silver for the May series was declined by $0.05 to a troy ounce respectively.

Daily trend of FII/MF investment in equities

On April 19, 2010, the FIIs were the net buyers of the Indian stocks to the tune of Rs363.70 crore, whereas the domestic mutual funds, on April 16, 2010, were the net sellers of the stocks to the tune of Rs292.90 crore