Pre-market: Sensex may see a higher opening

Markets are likely to open in the positive zone, following cues from US and Asian peers.

US markets ended in the green on Monday with the Dow Jones adding 0.8% to 12,226. Nasdaq was unchanged at 2,782. S&P 500 advanced 0.5% to 1,327.

Asian markets were trading with a positive bias this morning. The Hang Seng added 25 points to 23,363. Nikkei jumped 73 points to 10,697. Taiwan Weighted and Straits Times surged 1% each to 8,692 and 3,041, respectively.

The SGX Nifty was up 37 points at 5,380.

Monday saw the markets yo-yo more than 600 points in a highly surcharged atmosphere as participants sought to make sense of Pranab Mukherjee's Budget proposals. The Sensex, which soared by as much as 600 points in the aftermath of the FM's speech, erased more than 400 points and ended below the 18k mark at 17,823, up a mere 122 points, and the Nifty ended at 5333, up 29 points.

Among the major budget proposals, the finance minister promised the introduction of a food security bill to tackle hunger and malnutrition, a comprehensive national policy to control the trafficking of narcotic drugs and a task force to deal with the problem of black money. The FM also assured steps to simplify the tax and tariff procedures and simplify the service tax refunds process. He also announced infra status for the fertiliser sector investments and infra status to cold storage chains, besides a 3% interest subsidy to farmers in FY12.

The sectors to watch out for would be textiles, aviation among others.