Pre-market: Shares seen opening higher, HUL eyed

Asian markets mixed ahead of BoJ policy outcome

Markets are likely to mirror cues from global peers and open in the green this morning. Among the major companies to announce their results today are Hindustan Unilever, IndiaBulls Financial Services, Dish TV amd Kotak Mahindra Bank.

In Asia, Bank of Japan holds a two-day meeting on interest rates in Japan on 21 and 22 January 2013. The Nikkei is up marginally at 10,786. Shanghai Composite and Taiwan Weighted are also marginally in green. At 700 hrs IST the SGX Nifty was down 5 points at 6,095.

In individual stocks, watch out for ITC as it will invest Rs 1,000 crore in food and consumer goods sector in the next two to three years.

An unimpressive performance on Reliance's exploration and production front has brought the refining and marketing and petrochemicals business back in the reckoning - which might bring the stock into focus today.

NTPC, Cairn India, Alembic Pharma and SpiceJet may react to their results today.

Anil Ambani-owned Reliance Communications might have several catalysts to unlock value, and one of these could be an ‘inevitable’ telecom tower deal with Reliance Industries, said a report by brokerage CLSA.