Global trends, foreign funds movement to guide equities this week

With the third quarter earnings calendar coming to an end and no major domestic trigger in sight, equity investors will focus on global trends and foreign fund movement this week, analysts said.

Markets may face volatile trends amid derivatives expiry during the week, they added.

"Global cues and F&O expiry may cause volatility this week. Although FIIs have shown some interest in purchasing over the past few days, there were a few block purchases last week, so their flow will be crucial," said Santosh Meena, Head of Research, Swastika Investmart Ltd.

FPIs turned net buyers last week with an investment of over Rs 7,600 crore against net outflows of Rs 3,920 crore in the preceding week (From February 7-12).

Brent crude oil movement and the trend in the rupee would also be in focus this week.

"With all major events behind us, the performance of the global markets, especially the US, will be in focus for cues. Besides, crude and rupee movement will continue to offer indications in between," Ajit Mishra, VP Technical Research, Religare Broking Ltd, said.

The BSE benchmark last week climbed 319.87 points or 0.52 per cent. "Dominated by the release of key macroeconomic numbers and persistent FII buying, domestic markets witnessed a positive trend during the last week.

"However, the unfavourable combination of higher-than-expected inflation and a stronger job market in the US market dragged markets lower towards the end of the week, raising concerns about tighter monetary policy," said Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services.

The lack of major triggers in the domestic market will attract global cues to dictate the market's trend going forward, Nair added.