Marketbuzz Podcast with Vivek Iyer: Sensex, Nifty 50 likely to open higher, Maruti earnings in focus

We are starting the week with positive cues as far as the global markets are concerned. Equity markets have continued to remain quite resilient despite all the worries.

Cues from global markets were very strong on Friday, with Nasdaq up almost 2 percent. However, in the Indian markets, the joker in the pack continued to emain crude oil prices, which gained further traction. Both benchmark titles, WTI and brent crude futures, have now seen five straight weekly gains, which continues to put pressure as far as Indian markets are concerned.

Last week, Indian markets witnessed profit booking from higher levels, especially financials and IT, who were among the laggards in the week gone by. Our broader markets continue to stay relative outperformers.

On Friday, IT and financial stocks witness selling pressure, with Infosys, TCS were among the top laggards. Indian markets snapped their four-week gaining streak.

Going forward, it will be important to see how exactly do foreign institutional investors (FIIs) position themselves in the Indian markets. FII flows continue to remain a key monitorable, given the fact that the Indan markets rally was aided by strong FII inflows.

This week, we will see over 350 companies declaring their first quarter results. The key results today include Maruti Suzuki, Power Grid, UPL, GAIL. In IPOs too, the primary market activity is quite strong. We will see two mainstream IPOs — SBFC Finance looking to mop up over Rs 1,000 crore and Concord Biotech looking to raise almost Rs 1,600 crore.

Three SME IPOs too are in the pipeline for the primary and secondary market activity.

Markets will take direction from the first quarter earnings as well as fund flow activity for this week as well.