Markets to once again start the day on a soft note tailing weak global cues

The Indian markets got some respite in last session and major indices after five days losing streak, stabilized posting modest gains. Today, once again the start is likely to be weak. Traders apart from the global distress, will be reacting to the lower revision of the GDP estimates for the FY13 and the report that fiscal deficit in the first three quarters of the current fiscal year ending March touched 95.2% of the budgeted target for the whole year at Rs 5.16 lakh crore as compared with 78.8% a year ago. Traders will also be cautious ahead of the release of HSBC India Manufacturing PMI data scheduled to be announced later in the day. There will also be concern about a CII survey, which has shown that India’s economy is likely to grow in the range of 4.5 to 5% during the second half of the current fiscal. The country's economy grew by 4.6% in the first six months of the current financial year that means the growth will remain sub 5% for the fiscal. There will be some action in the telecom sector, as in a major setback the Supreme Court rejected an appeal by Bharti Airtel, Vodafone, Loop and Idea for a stay on the spectrum auction which is scheduled to begin today. The order will force the incumbent spectrum holding companies to bid aggressively to regain their bandwidth holdings. There will be some buzz in the aviation stocks too, as the major airlines have slashed fares for the second time, while India lost the top safety ranking from the US Federal Aviation Administration.

There will be lots of result announcements too, to keep the markets buzzing. Aksh Optifibre, Chambal Fertilizers, DCM Shriram Cons, JP Infratec, JP Power, Lupin, Procter & Gamble, TajGVK Hotels, Tata Chemicals and Vijaya Bank are among many to announce their numbers today.

The US markets snapped the week and month lower on getting mixed set of economic numbers, and on concern after the Fed extended its stimulus cut. The Asian markets have made a weak start, extending their January rout after a long weekend. Most of the indices are trading lower by 1-1.5% on concern of slowdown in Chinese manufacturing growth.

Back home, first day of the new F&O series largely remained flat as the aimless indices oscillated in a very tight range throughout the session. Nevertheless, Indian barometer gauges, snapping five days losing streak, ended the session slightly in the green terrain, with market participants hunting for oversold but fundamentally strong bargains. Moreover, some relief crept in after Finance Ministry, in an attempt to calm down frayed nerves, underscored that the economy was well prepared to deal with the US Fed tapering programme. However, gains remained capped as cautiousness crept in, as RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan warned of a breakdown in global policy coordination after the Federal Reserve cut stimulus, further weakening the emerging-market currencies. The investors also remained on sidelines ahead of fiscal deficit data for the April-December period and first revised GDP data for the fiscal year that ended in March 2013, scheduled to be announced later in the day. On the global front, European markets traded lower in early deals, in Asia, with most of the markets in the region close for Lunar New Year holiday, Japanese Nikkei, reversing all its gains, ended the session in the red terrain. Back home, banking stocks remained on buyers’ radar after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on January 30, 2014 laid out a road map to deal with a surge in bad loans in the banking system. Some boost to the banking stocks also came after Punjab National Bank (PNB) reported fall in ratio of net non-performing asset to 2.8% on sequential basis from 3.07% as on September 30, 2013. Moreover, stocks related to software and technology counter viz. TCS, Wipro, Tech Mahindra etc. edged higher on good US economic data.  Additionally, select stocks from real estate counter like, Godrej Properties and Oberoi Realty edged higher after the Supreme Court on Thursday quashed all prior notices and orders regarding encroached forest land in various areas bordering the sprawling Sanjay Gandhi National Park in Mumbai. Finally, the BSE Sensex gained 15.60 points or 0.08%, to settle at 20513.85, while the CNX Nifty added 15.80 points or 0.26% to settle at 6,089.50.