BENGALURU (Reuters) – Indian shares are set to open higher on Monday, tracking their Asian peers, while ICICI Bank’s strong results are expected to lift financial stocks.
India’s GIFT Nifty was trading at 22,642 as of 08:15 a.m. IST, indicating that the Nifty 50 will open above its close of 22,419.95 on Friday.
Easing concerns about a major escalation in the Middle East conflict and stable Indian corporate earnings powered the domestic benchmark indexes to weekly gains on Friday.
Asian markets opened higher, riding on the gains in U.S. equities on Friday after robust quarterly results from Alphabet and Microsoft and in-line inflation data. [MKTS/GLOB]
ICICI Bank, India’s second-largest private lender reported a better-than-expected 17.4% increase in quarterly profit and margins over the weekend.
“Quarterly earnings reports are poised to influence the domestic market dynamics,” said Vinod Nair, head of research at Geojit Financial Services.
Shares of Maruti Suzuki will be in focus after the carmaker missed profit estimates for the March quarter due to higher input costs, while software services provider HCLTech also reported a smaller-than-expected revenue for the same period.
Foreign institutional investors sold Indian shares for the fifth straight session on Friday, offloading shares worth 34.09 billion rupees (about $409 million), while domestic institutional investors bought shares worth 43.57 billion rupees on a net basis.
STOCKS TO WATCH:
** SBI Cards and Payment: The company reported a surprise rise in quarterly profit as higher retail spending more than made up for a rise in bad loans.
** Mahindra Lifespace: The company reported a rise in March-quarter profit and declared a dividend of 2.565 rupees per share.
** Key earnings: Ultratech Cement, Trent and KPIT Technologies ($1 = 83.3750 Indian rupees)
(Reporting by Bharath Rajeswaran in Bengaluru; Editing by Savio D’Souza)
Disclaimer: This report is auto generated from the Reuters news service. ThePrint holds no responsibilty for its content.