Market Ahead Podcast, Oct 8: Top factors that could guide markets today

Domestic markets will remain volatile in the first half of Friday’s session as investors will read the fine print of the Reserve Bank of India’s policy decision.

RBI governor Shaktikanta Das will announce the policy outcome at 10 AM today, followed by a press conference later in the day.

While the central bank is expected to hold key interest rates steady to support growth, its views on policy normalization, GDP growth, inflation trajectory, and G-SAP quantum will hold importance.

Given this, rate-sensitive stocks such as banks, automobile, and real estate players, along with movement in bond yields will be on investor radar today.

Thereafter, focus will shift to IT stocks as sector major Tata Consultancy Services will kick start the September quarter earnings’ season.

Most brokerages are penciling in double-digit growth in net profit and revenue, led by improvement in demand from BFSI, healthcare and retail, acceleration in digital technologies and ramp-up of deals along with recovery from the India market.

Furthermore, persistent market share loss of key players such as Capgemini and Cognizant is also expected to directly benefit TCS.

While net profit growth is expected to grow anywhere between 22-32%, up to Rs 9,927 crore, the revenue could rise up to 20 per cent over previous year to Rs 48,191 crore.

As regards key monitorables, the management’s view on margin outlook, demand and pricing trends along with deal win commentary will be keenly tracked by the markets.

Stock-specific developments, foreign fund flow, and oil prices will be the other factors guiding the markets today.

On the global front, investors will track China’s Services PMI data for September and US’ weekly jobs data, slated to be released later today.

On Thursday, equity markets rebounded amid a recovery in global markets. The BSE Sensex settled 488 points higher at 59,678 levels while the Nifty50 shut shop at 17,790-mark, up 144 points. Both the indices were up 0.8 per cent each.

The recovery in the broader markets was even sharper with the BSE MidCap and SmallCap indices settling 1.7 per cent and 1.4 per cent higher, respectively.