Economy woes may drag Indian stocks at start

Headlines for the day:

ONGC divided on Cairn counter-bid idea

Piramal Health's realty ideas on Thane land

R-Power eyes $5-billion Indonesia investment



Events for the day:

Major corporate action

Prakash Steelage to be listed today
Ex-date for dividend of Take Solutions, ABC India
For more events and news, log on to Sharekhan.com

Updates on global events

The US existing home sales for the month ended July 2010 tumbled by 27.2%.

Pre-market report

Global signals

The European stocks fell to a one-month closing low on Tuesday (August 25, 2010) as disappointing US housing data underscored concern over the pace of recovery in the world's largest economy.

The US markets fell to their lowest level in seven weeks on Tuesday as an unexpectedly large drop in home sales ratcheted up concerns that the economic recovery is even weaker than had been feared.

The Asian markets were lower in their early trade, after a drop on Wall Street. SGX Nifty was trading 8.5 points lower, indicating to have a negative start on the Indian bourses.

Indian Indices

It was quite a dull day for the India equities in the previous session. However, the Nifty managed to sustain its 5500 levels, which showed some sign of relief among the market players.

The markets have been trading in a downward trend in the last few sessions, indicating that some profit booking has started reflecting on the charts. The current scenario around the globe has been hit on the concern over the pace of recovery in the world's largest economy, as the US and the European markets closed their previous session more than 1% lower. The Asian markets are also trading in the same line and it is highly expected that the Indian stocks may start the session lower.

However, markets may trade with some volatility due to expiry of August derivatives contracts, which will end tomorrow.

Commodity cues

The oil fell for a fifth straight session, ending at the lowest settlement in eleven weeks as weak US economic data and high inventories stoked oil demand concerns, as the crude oil futures for October delivery declined by $1.47, to settle at $71.63 a barrel

Daily trend of FII/MF investment in equities

The foreign funds have bought Indian equities worth a net of Rs713.80 crore on August 23, 2010, substantially lower than Rs2,655.30 crore on August 20, 2010.