Markets may see flat opening ahead of F&O expiry

Wednesday turned out to be a wonderful day for the India equity benchmarks, with NSE- Nifty closing above the magical five-digit mark of 10,000 for the first time ever and BSE Sensex rose 154 points to settle at 32,382.

The European markets posted gains on Wednesday following decent U.K. GDP data and slew of positive corporate earnings. The DAX of Germany rose 0.33 per cent and the CAC 40 of France advanced 0.56 per cent. The FTSE 100 of the U.K. climbed 0.24 per cent.

U.S stock-market benchmarks finished modestly higher on Wednesday, with all the three indexes recording all-time highs driven by upbeat earnings and the Federal Reserve left interest rates unchanged. The Dow Jones Industrial average advanced 98 points to 21,711. The S&P 500 closed at 2,478 a fraction of a point higher. The Nasdaq Composite Index rose 11 points to close at a record 6,423.

The majority of Asian stocks eked out gains in early trade on Thursday. Hong Kong Hang Seng has gained 79 points followed by Japan’s Nikkei 225 as it has advanced 43 points and bucking the trend China’s Shanghai Composite has shed 13 points.

The Indian benchmarks may open flat with a positive bias, the following positive close of the U.S. market in overnight trade and optimistic sentiments prevailing in Asian peers. The Singapore-traded SGX Nifty was trading at 10,038 up by 7 points, hinting a flat start with a positive bias for the indices. Today is F&O expiry for July Series expect some volatility as the day progresses and a large number of corporates earnings to be reported as well. Some of the key corporate's reporting earnings include Dr Reddy’s Laboratories, HCL Tech, ICICI Bank, ITC, Maruti Suzuki, ONGC, Exide, Glenmark, Biocon, Idea Cellular, Syngene, Reliance Capital, Tata Elxsi.