Pre-Market: Cautious start likely

Global cues muted

Markets are likely to see a cautious opening today following global cues. For the rest of the week, markets may be volatile ahead of Thursday's F&O expiry.

Overnight, U.S. stocks edged lower on Monday as a disappointing forecast from Caterpillar and weak German data increased concerns that global growth may remain sluggish.

Asian shares eased on Tuesday after sentiment was weakened by data showing Germany's business confidence dropped in September, and a weak earnings forecast from Caterpillar Inc , both of which underscored worries about a global growth slowdown.

The MSCI index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan inched down 0.1 percent. Tokyo's Nikkei average opened down 0.4 percent, hitting a fresh one-week low. At 700 Indian Standard Times, the SGX Nifty was up 7 points at 5,690.

STOCKS TO WATCH

MindTree has opened its first delivery centre outside of India, in the US. The new centre is located in Gainesville, Florida.

Adani Power has pledged more than seven crore additional shares, accounting for about 3.25% stake in the company.

Cairn Energy is selling an 8 percent stake in India-focused oil explorer Cairn India in a deal that could raise up to $940 million, a source with direct knowledge of the deal said on Monday.

ONGC will start producing natural gas from a block that sits next to Reliance Industries' flagging KG-D6 fields in Bay of Bengal by 2016-17.

ONGC, IOC and OIL have made a joint bid of about $5 billion for buying stake in six Canadian oil sands assets of US energy giant ConocoPhillips.

JSPL has raised a bridge loan of Rs 660 crore to fund its CIC Energy acquisition.

Maruti Suzuki will hike prices of its vehicles within a week in order to offset impact of adverse foreign exchange fluctuation and rising input costs.