Mumbai, April 23 The ongoing fourth quarter results season, coupled with geo-political cues and derivatives expiry, are expected to affect the movements of key equity indices for the week beginning April 24, 2017.
"Investors are expected to closely follow near term cues like global markets sentiments and quarterly results," Dhruv Desai, Director and Chief Operating Officer of Tradebulls, told IANS.
"Volatile trade is likely to emerge during the upcoming week due to profit booking at higher levels."
Companies like the Indiabulls Housing Finance, Reliance Industries (RIL), Ultratech Cement, Axis Bank, Wipro, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Maruti Suzuki, Ambuja Cements and IDFC are expected to announce their quarterly results in the coming trade week.
Apart from the quarterly results, market participants will track the presidential elections in France, where voters go to the polls on Sunday.
France is the second-largest economy in the euro-zone and one of the seven biggest across the world.
Further, any developments on the geo-political tensions between the US and North Korea will easily weigh its impact on global markets, including India.
According to D.K. Aggarwal, Chairman and Managing Director, SMC Investments and Advisors, the key Indian equity markets could witness volatility owing to F&O (Futures and Options) expiry scheduled for April 27.
"Markets are expected to witness volatility on the back of derivatives expiry during the upcoming trading week," Aggarwal told IANS.
Besides, trends in global crude oil prices, movement of the Indian rupee and direction of foreign funds' inflow will be other major theme for the upcoming week.
"Markets will seek direction from the movement of the rupee, flow of foreign funds, global market sentiments and crude oil prices," Aggarwal pointed out.
Last week, the Indian rupee weakened by 20-21 paise to 64.61 against a US dollar from last week's close of 64.41-42.
In terms of investments, provisional figures from the stock exchanges showed a massive outflow of foreign funds worth Rs 3,001.77 crore.
However, the domestic investors purchased scrip worth Rs 2,492.43 crore during last week.
Figures from the National Securities Depository (NSDL) revealed that foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) off-loaded equities worth Rs 1,865.74 crore, or $289.19 million, during April 17-21.
On technical levels, analysts said that traders will need to watch out if the NSE Nifty can hold above its immediate supports of 9,075 points.
"Technically, with the Nifty correcting for two consecutive weeks, traders will need to watch if the Nifty can now hold above the immediate supports of 9,075 points early next week," Deepak Jasani, Head - Retail Research, HDFC Securities, told IANS.
"Else, a further correction is likely towards the next major supports at 8,976-9,024 points."
On last Friday, the equity markets extended losses for the second consecutive week, as bearish global cues and outflow of foreign funds curbed investors' risk-taking appetite.
The barometer 30-scrip Sensitive Index (Sensex) of the BSE slipped by 96.15 points or 0.33 per cent to close the week's trade to 29,365.30 points.
Similarly, the wider 51-scrip Nifty of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) fell by 31.4 points or 0.34 per cent to 9,119.40 points.
