Big firms' Q3 results, world cues will decide course of stocks this week

Trading in stock markets this week will be majorly influenced by the upcoming quarterly earnings from IT majors TCS and Infosys, along with global trends, analysts said.

Besides, global oil benchmark Brent crude, rupee-dollar trend and trading activity of foreign investors would also dictate the movement, they said.

"On the domestic front, all eyes will be on the beginning of corporate performance for the third quarter of the current fiscal year. Market participants will be keeping an eye on the movement of the rupee against the dollar and crude oil prices.

"Investments by Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) and Domestic Institutional Investors (DIIs) will also be monitored," said Pravesh Gour, Senior Technical Analyst at Swastika Investmart Ltd.

Infosys and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) will announce their earnings on Thursday while the quarterly results of HCL Technologies and Wipro will be out on Friday.

Sunny Agrawal, Head of Fundamental Equity Research, SBI Securities Ltd, said, the third quarter result season which will kick start from the second week of January is the immediate major factor to watch out for.

From the macroeconomic front, inflation data for December and industrial production for November are scheduled to be announced post-market hours on Friday.

"The market will react to the domestic and global macroeconomic data, global bond yields, crude oil inventories, movement of the dollar index, FII and DII investment activities," Arvinder Singh Nanda, Senior Vice-President of Master Capital Services Ltd, said.

The US inflation data, initial jobless claims, China inflation data and the UK GDP will also be watched, Nanda added.

Last week, the BSE benchmark declined 214.11 points or 0.29 per cent, and the Nifty dipped 20.6 points or 0.09 per cent.

"We expect the markets to take cues from the upcoming earnings season which will be kick-started by TCS and Infosys on 11th January. HCL Tech, Wipro, and HDFC Life are a few others that will announce their results this week," Siddhartha Khemka, Head - Retail Research, Motilal Oswal Financial Services Ltd, said.

Market valuation of 6 of 10 big ticket firms declined to Rs 57,408.22 crore last week

Meanwhile,  the combined market valuation of six of the top-10 most valued firms declined Rs 57,408.22 crore last week, with Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and HDFC Bank taking the biggest hit, in-line with muted trends in equities.

Last week, the BSE benchmark declined 214.11 points, or 0.29 per cent, even after hitting an all-time high of 72,561.91 on January 1.

The market valuation of TCS fell by Rs 20,929.77 crore to Rs 13,67,661.93 crore, the most among the top-10 firms.

HDFC Bank's market capitalisation (mcap) declined Rs 20,536.48 crore to Rs 12,77,435.56 crore.

The valuation of Hindustan Unilever fell Rs 10,114.99 crore to Rs 6,15,663.40 crore.

The mcap of Infosys went down Rs 4,129.69 crore to Rs 6,36,222.11 crore, and that of ICICI Bank by Rs 1,608.05 crore to Rs 6,97,357.42 crore.

The valuation of State Bank of India dipped Rs 89.24 crore to Rs 5,72,826.22 crore.

However, the mcap of Reliance Industries jumped Rs 14,816.85 crore to Rs 17,63,644.77 crore while ITC added Rs 14,409.32 crore taking its valuation to Rs 5,91,219.09 crore.

Bharti Airtel's market valuation climbed Rs 8,200.55 crore to Rs 5,88,846.09 crore.

The mcap of Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) soared Rs 7,020.75 crore to reach Rs 5,34,082.81 crore.

Reliance Industries continued to rule the chart of the most valued firms followed by TCS, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Infosys, Hindustan Unilever, ITC, Bharti Airtel, State Bank of India and LIC.