Indian shares look set to open a tad higher on Monday as investors look forward to a slew of economic reports and another batch of quarterly earnings this week for direction. It's going to be holiday-truncated week as markets will remain closed on Tuesday on account of Mahashivratri.
Bank of India, GAIL , Jet Airways, Grasim Industries, Nestle India, NMDC, Sun Pharma and Tata Power are among the major companies due to unveil their Q3 results this week. On the data front, investors await reports on industrial output and inflation for more clues on the economy.
Meanwhile, SBI surprised markets by reporting a massive quarterly loss due to higher provisions towards bad loan and hardening of bond yields. On the hand, Tata Steel's Q3 net profit jumped five-fold on the back of strong volume growth in the domestic market and a hike in steel prices.
Benchmark indexes Sensex and the Nifty lost about 3 percent last week as fears that the Federal Reserve would be more aggressive with interest rate hikes in 2018 engulfed global markets and the RBI flagged concerns on inflation.
Asian stocks are trading mixed this morning amid a holiday in Japan. Oil held steady after falling for the sixth straight session on Friday as the dollar eased a little bit ahead of U.S. inflation data due this week.
U.S stocks rallied on Friday in volatile trading as traders reacted positively to news that lawmakers managed to end a brief government shutdown with a bill raising spending caps and funding the government until March 23rd.
The Dow surged 1.4 percent but lost 5.2 percent for the week. The S&P 500 advanced 1.5 percent and the Nasdaq Composite climbed 1.4 percent.
European markets ended sharply lower on Friday, capping their worst week in nearly two years on concerns over rising inflation and higher interest rates.
The pan-European Stoxx Europe 600 index tumbled 1.5 percent. The German DAX dropped 1.3 percent, France's CAC 40 index shed 1.4 percent and the U.K.'s FTSE 100 declined 1.1 percent.
by RTT Staff Writer
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