Flat start on the cards

Headlines for the day:

Insurance industry reinvents itself under new regime

Cipla to buy 25% in South Africa unit

Petronet plans Rs2,300 crore expansion at LNG terminal



Events for the day:

Major corporate action

India’s weekly inflation to be announced today, to view the update on this, kindly log on to Sharekhan.com at 12 pm

Parenteral Drugs board to consider bonus issue

Ex-date for final dividend of Gail India

Updates on global events

The US continuing claims for the week ended August 21, 2010 stood at 4,456,000 as compared to 4,479,000 seen in the previous week.

The US initial claims for the week ended August 28, 2010 stood at 472,000 as compared to 478,000 seen in the previous week.

Pre-market report

Global signals

The European markets ended mostly flat on Thursday (September 02, 2010), as investors took a breather after the previous session's jump while recently-hit construction stocks extended their recovery, aided by a batch of positive US data.

The US markets rose on low volume on Thursday as data showed improvement in housing and the job market a day ahead of the critical monthly payrolls figures.

The Asian markets were trading with modest gains except Shanghai Composite, following the Wall Street gain. SGX Nifty was trading 20 points up, indicating for a flat to positive start on the Indian bourses.

Indian indices

The Indian markets have performed well in three trading sessions of the week, the Sensex and Nifty have gained 250 points (1.39%) and 77 points (1.42%) respectively due to improved market sentiments.

The domestic stocks may open flat to positive today mirroring positive cues across the globe. Going in to the session, the markets are expected to remain volatile, as weekly inflation will be released today.

Commodity cues

Crude oil rose for a second day on Thursday as the economic outlook brightened, as the crude oil futures for October delivery rose by $1.11, to settle at $75.02 a barrel.

Daily trend of FII/MF investment in equities

The foreign institutional investors (FIIs) have been positive in three of the four sessions this week, as they bought Indian equities worth a net of Rs526.80 crore on September 02, 2010, as compared to net buyers of Rs538.40 crore on September 01, 2010.