Pre-market: Markets likely to trade range-bound

The markets are likely to trade range bound today with a negative bias and they react to the inflation numbers for March 2012 due today and await the Reserve Bank of India’s review of the monetary policy tomorrow.

The markets ended a volatile week in the red, thanks a slew of negative developments which dampened the investor sentiment through the week. The BSE benchmark index fell 2.24% while the Nifty lost 2.17% for the week ended April 13.

Asian shares eased on Monday as a surge in Spanish government bond yields renewed concerns about the euro zone's sovereign debt crisis and undermined investor confidence in riskier assets.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia Pacific shares outside Japan fell 0.4% while Japan's Nikkei average opened down 1.2%. At 710 am Indian Standard Time, the SGX Nifty was trading at 5,181 levels – down 0.7%.

Among individual stocks, Coal India board is likely to meet today to consider the model agreement with power producers for assured supply of the fuel.

Linc Pen and Plastics plans to set up a manufacturing facility in Gujarat at an investment of 25 crore rupees.

Also keep a tab on MindTree as it announces its March 2012 quarter results today.

Development Credit Bank reported 52% rise in its March quarter net profit post market hours.

IDBI Bank is setting up its second infrastructure debt fund with authorised capital of Rs 1,000 crore through the non-banking financial company route.

Also watch out for interest rate sensitive stocks as they react to inflation numbers today and align themselves ahead of the monetary policy review due tomorrow.