Markets to Open Flat On Global Cues

Domestic markets seems to be inching slowly upwaords yesterday taking positive cues from the global markets. The market advanced further for straight sixth trading session and the BSE Sensex gained by 0.63 per cent. The upword movement of the market was supported by the stocks in capital goods, power, IT services, and automobile sectors. The BSE capital goods, IT services, and automobile indices were up by 1.34, 1.45, 1.09 and 0.89 per cent respectively. The small cap companies showed good buying interest on Wednesday.

European Central Bank (ECB) officials held a regular meeting on Wednesday. The officials accepted the Greece’s request to lend Euro 68.3 billion through emergency liquidity assistance (ELA). Earlier two weeks back, ECB officials refused Greek government bonds as collateral for standard ECB loans. Now under this ELA, the loans will carry a higher interest rate than normal ECB credit. This ELA will be for next couple of weeks and ECB’s next meeting is scheduled on March 5. The European markets cheered this move and the French and German stock market barometers CAC 40 and DAX were up by 0.95 and 0.60 per cent respectively after the announcement. The UK FTSE closed flat at 6898 yesterday.

The US markets closed marginally down yesterday. The S&P 500 was stagnant at 2100 on Wednesday and closed lower by 0.03 per cent. The Nasdaq Composite Index marginally advanced by 0.14 per cent to 4906. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down by 0.10 per cent to 18030. The investors disappointed on the minutes from the Federal Reserve’s latest policy meeting. The minutes showed that the Fed is not in hurry to increase the policy rates and a premature rate hike would harm the country’s recovery.

Today morning, the Japanese stocks were trading higher on the stronger yen. Further the Japanese market gave thumps up for Sony’s turnaround plan for its audio visual business. The Japanese Nikkei 225 index was trading at 18278, up by 0.43 per cent. the Australian stocks market barometer ASX 200 was trading little lower by 0.27 per cent at 5899.

The SGX Nifty was trading in positive zone and gaining almost 10 odd points at 8895. We expect markets to open flat today morning on mixed bag reaction from US and Europe news flows.