Earnings, crude prices will drive the markets
The Indian equity markets are expected to be influenced by the ongoing earnings season, along with the F&O expiry this week, experts opined. Besides earnings, global crude oil prices and the direction taken by foreign funds are expected to act as other major triggers, observers said.
"For the week the focus again will be on earnings and global markets. The broader earnings declared so far have been decent with net profits rising in late teens, more than the revenue gains," Devendra Nevgi, Founder and Principal Partner, Delta Global Partners, told IANS. "Banks and cyclical sector earnings would be closely watched for clues on... the NPA cycle. The buoyancy in global markets and the stronger FPI flows would provide a floor to the markets." Companies like Asian Paints, Axis Bank, Biocon, Idea Cellular, Interglobe Aviation, Larsen & Toubro, Pfizer, Dr Reddys Laboratories, Jindal Steel & Power and Maruti Suzuki India are expected to announce their quarterly results in the coming week. Further, Nevgi said: "Crude oil prices, if sustained around $70 per barrel can derail the positive sentiment. Globally, the risk of US government shutdown, the statements made during WEF in Davos and Bank of Japan next week would be closely watched." According to Shibani Kurian, Senior Vice President and Head of Equity Research, Kotak Mutual Fund (MF): "With the rise in oil prices, India's Current Account Deficit [CAD] outlook is under some pressure even while the robust forex reserves and strong portfolio flows gives adequate cushion to manage the widening deficit." Official data released in the past week showed that the country's overall Forex reserves had risen to $413.82 billion as on January 12, 2018. In terms of investments, provisional figures from the stock exchanges revealed that foreign institutional investors purchased scrip worth Rs 4,234.46 crore. On the currency front, the rupee is expected to hover between 63.50 to 64.10 against a US dollar. Last Friday, the rupee weakened by 22 paise to close at 63.85 against the greenback. "Over the past week, sell-off in local bonds and rising oil prices have caused rupee to depreciate towards 64.10, before the pair retraced and settled around 63.84 levels on spot," Anindya Banerjee, Deputy Vice President for Currency and Interest Rates with Kotak Securities told the news agency. "Higher oil prices and concerns over government finances is keeping the domestic bond markets within the grip of bears.
The same set of factors is also keeping rupee an underperformer in the EM basket as well. FPIs are favouring currencies of commodity producers .... "As per technical charts, the uptrend in Nifty "remains intact". "Technically, with the Nifty surging higher to new record highs, the underlying intermediate uptrend remains intact," Deepak Jasani, Head - Retail Research, HDFC Securities, told IANS.