Markets Trading Positive

As expected in our morning update, the Indian markets are in choppy trades and opened flat, up, mainly on the back of positive cues from the Asian markets. The Sensex and Nifty are currently up by 0.3% and 0.26% respectively. The earnings season in the US has kicked off on a strong note with the results announcement of Alcoa.

The major Asian indices opened on a positive note, but weak sentiments across the European and US regions dragged the markets down into the negative territory. The major indices, Hang Seng, Nikkei and Shanghai are down by 0.30%, 0.12% and 0.53% respectively.

Among the BSE sectoral indices, barring the Power index (down by 0.03%), all the others are trading positive in the range of 0.04%-0.82%. Of the major gainers, Realty, Auto and Consumer Durables are leading with gains of 0.82%, 0.77% and 0.72% respectively.

Back home, from the Sensex shares, Tata Motors and Hero MotoCorp are leading the charts with gains of 1% and 1.5% respectively. The other major gainers are Bajaj Auto, GAIL India, ICICI Bank, L&T, etc. which are trading with gains between 0.55%-0.84%.

In individual stocks, OnMobile Global was down by 2% after its CEO, Arvind Rao, resigned. Mouli Raman, another co-founder, has been named as the interim MD, while the company has initiated a search for a new CEO.

Tata Power is down by 1.08% at Rs 100.35 after the global credit rating agency S&P downgraded the company's outlook from stable to negative.

The earnings season in India Inc. has kicked off. Today, companies like Advani Hotels & Resorts and IndusInd Bank will announce their results, and we ask investors to watch out for these stocks.

The market breadth, which indicates the overall health of the market, is positive as of now. On the BSE, 1199 shares have risen and 546 shares have declined. 73 shares are unchanged.

We expect the markets to remain volatile. The European markets are expected to provide some vital cues on the desired direction of the market trend in the late afternoon session.