Pre-Market: Upward movement likely to continue

Positive global sentiment to support the move

After a spectacular session on Wednesday where the benchmark indices surged nearly 3%, the markets could consolidate today. However, it is quite likely that the positive global sentiment takes the markets higher in the first half of trade.

US stocks jumped on Wednesday, giving the S&P 500 its best day since December, as talk of a rescue of Spain's troubled banks and hopes for more monetary stimulus sparked a rebound. The Dow Jones industrial average and the Standard & Poor's 500 Index rallied over 2% each.

Asian markets gained Thursday with Japan's Nikkei, while Korea's Kospi soared 2.4%. At 705 am Indian Standard Time, the SGX Nifty was trading at 5,043 – up 1.4%.

Among individual stocks infrastructure stocks could be in focus again post the Prime Minister’s meeting to put projects on the fast
track. While economists and analysts were happy with the overall move to go for infrastructure-led growth, the announcements, they said, fell short of expectations as some initiatives had no implementation timeline.

Apollo Hospitals Enterprise will buy out partner Imperial Hospital’s stake in a Bangalore hospital-cum-research facility for around Rs 100 crore. This could bring the stock back in limelight today.

Steelcast has reported net profit of Rs 4.14 crore for the fourth quarter ended March 2012, showing a y-o-y jump of 138%.

Automobile dealers from across the US filed a lawsuit on Monday, accusing Mahindra and Mahindra of ‘fraud, misrepresentation and
conspiracy’. This could keep the stock under pressure today.

RIL will react to the statements coming from annual general meeting today.