Market Ahead, May 21: Top factors that could guide markets today

Investors will today react to the several announcements made by the government yesterday, corporate results and global cues. 

Aviation stocks will be in focus today after the government announced that domestic airline operations would resume on May 25, more than two months after all flights were halted. Moreover, the government clarified that it would use RBI money to support struggling NBFCs for only three months, as against industry expectations of 2-3 years

The Union Cabinet also approved additional funding of up to Rs 3 trillion at a concessional rate of 9.25 per cent for the MSME sector hit hard by the coronavirus crisis. Besides, the new auction methodology for commercial mining and sale of coal by private companies was also approved by the Cabinet yesterday.

The rights issue of Reliance Industries, which opened yesterday, drew a huge interest. Shareholders paid as much as Rs 212 to invest in the Rights Entitlement to be eligible for participation in the Rs 53,125-crore rights issue. Trading in RIL RE will continue till May 29.

On the results front, Bajaj Auto posted better-than-expected earnings for the March quarter over the year-ago period, helped strongly by export volumes of motorcycles. Revenue shrunk 8 per cent over the corresponding quarter last year at Rs 6,816 crore while net profit remained flat.

Drug major Dr Reddy's Laboratories Limited reported a 22 per cent increase in profit before tax at Rs 714.2 crore for the quarter.

Investors will first react to these results today. Besides, a total of 13 companies including Bajaj Finserv, Colgate Palmolive,  and Hindustan Zinc are scheduled to announce their March quarter results later in the day.

Meanwhile, the Sebi has advised India Inc to make enhanced disclosures pertaining to the virus impact on their businesses, and provide both quantitative and qualitative aspects of the same.

Sebi has also mandated the listing of units of schemes being wound up, giving investors of schemes in Franklin Templeton Mutual Fund an alternative route to access liquidity.

Moving on to the updates on coronavirus, India yesterday witnessed its biggest daily spike in the total number of cases, with over 6,000 being reported in 24 hours. At present, there are 107,789 cases, and as many as 3,316 people have died from the disease. 

The World Bank has announced emergency operations worth $160 billion in 100 developing countries to fight the deadly virus which has infected over 50 lakh people globally so far.

The three major averages on Wall St. notched their fourth gain in five sessions on Wednesday. The Dow Jones rose 1.5 per cent, the S&P 500 gained 1.7 per cent, and the Nasdaq Composite added 2 per cent. Asian shares were mixed. Japan's Nikkei rose 0.2 per cent while Australia's ASX200 was flat in early deals. SGX Nifty edged lower, indicating a slightly lower negative start for the Indian indices today.

Read by: Kanishka Gupta