Market Ahead, July 15: All you need to know before the opening bell

The Indian markets look all set for a strong start today amid firm global cues. At 7:15 AM, the SGX Nifty was trading around 98 points up at 10,710 levels. 

This comes after Wall Street ended higher overnight as investors looked beyond a recent surge in coronavirus cases. The Dow Jones rose over 2 per cent, while the S&P 500 gained 1.34 per cent and the Nasdaq climbed 0.94 per cent.

Asian markets followed Wall Street's lead and inched higher on Wednesday. Australian ASX 200 rose 1.18 per cent in early trading, Japan's Nikkei was up 1.5 per cent. In commodities, Brent crude was last trading at $43.07 a barrel.

The key event for the Indian markets today will be the 43rd Annual General Meeting of Reliance Industries which will be held via videoconferencing later in the day. Analysts expect the company to give details about the Saudi Aramco deal, plans for Jio Platforms listing, Jio Fiber trajectory, and the launch of 5G among other things.

Meanwhile, sources have told Business Standard that Google is in advanced talks to buy a $4 billion stake in Reliance Jio and that an announcement could come as soon as the next few weeks.

But ahead of that, investors will first react to quarterly results announced post market hours yesterday. Wipro reported a better-than-expected quarterly performance in Q1, as its profitability improved despite contraction in revenues on a sequential basis. The IT major's net profit grew by 0.11 per cent YoY at Rs 2,390.40 crore for the quarter. 

Mindtree, on the other hand, delivered a mixed set of numbers for the quarter as it beat profit estimates because of around Rs 87.7 crore in savings the company made from reduction in other expenses.

Today, a total of 53 companies including Infosys, Bandhan Bank, and Larsen & Toubro Infotech, are scheduled to announce their quarterly results.

Infosys is expected to report subdued numbers due to disruptions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. Meanwhile, the fall in Ebit margin could be limited due to the benefit from rupee depreciation, cut in travel costs, and optimisation on variable costs.

On the Covid-19 front, India recorded 29,842 new cases on Tuesday to take its total number of cases to over 9.37 lakh, according to Worldometer. Death toll now in India stands at 24,315. 

And now, a quick look at other top news of the day.

The Trai on Monday said India lost 2.84 million mobile phone users in March. While Reliance Jio added 4.68 million users, Vodafone Idea lost 6.35 million users and Bharti Airtel lost 1.26 million subscribers in March.

State Bank of India will today seek the approval of its board to raise capital through additional tier-1 and tier-II bonds from the markets in FY21. This capital is expected to strengthen capacity, boost growth, and create a buffer.

Rossari Biotech has received three times the demand of shares on offer in its IPO, which closes today. On Tuesday, the IPO garnered bids for 24.3 million shares, as against 8.17 million available.

Yes Bank on Tuesday allotted shares worth Rs 4,100 crore to 14 institutional investors in the ‘anchor’ category of its FPO. Around 3.41 billion shares were allotted at Rs 12 apiece. More than half of the shares in the anchor book were subscribed by US-based asset manager Tilden Park.