Pre-market: Nifty seen opening flat; may retest 8300 levels

NEW DELHI: The 50-share Nifty index is expected to open flat-to-higher on Monday following positive trend seen in other Asian markets. However, if the index fails to build on the momentum, it may retest its crucial psychological support level of 8,300 level.

At 07:30 a.m., Nifty India stock futures in Singapore were trading 14.50 points higher at 8,342 indicating positive opening on the domestic market.

The S&P BSE Sensex succumbed to heavy selling and remained in negative terrain throughout the week to log the biggest weekly fall of 1,004.16 points or 3.53 in the current calendar year. The CNX Nifty collapsed by 3.5 per cent in the same period.

Nifty continues to maintain its lower high lower low formation on daily chart. The index found strong resistance at 8505 level which is 38.2% Fibonacci Retracement of decline of recent fall from 8844 to the low of 8284.

"Nifty has immediate support placed at 8340 and 8270 which is recent positional low, if it breaks 8270 level then it may slide down till 8180 - 8100 level," GEPL Capital said in a report.

"On the contrary it has near term resistance placed at 8470 - 8510 level," added the report.

In the coming holiday shortened week, some of big listed corporate are scheduled to announce their results. UltraTech Cement, Maruti Suzuki, ICICI Bank, Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular, Sesa Sterlite, Axis Bank, HDFC, Ambuja Cements, IDFC & Grasim Industries are prominent names amongst all.

"The overall sentiments and market structure are pointing towards the lower levels in the benchmark in the coming sessions. And we believe possibility of testing 8200 level in Nifty is quite high till it's upholding below 8530 mark," says Jayant Manglik, President-retail distribution, Religare Securities Limited.

"Meanwhile, stocks may continue to witness volatile moves in both directions so we reiterate our advice to maintain stock specific trading approach," he adds.

On Friday, US stocks ended at recorded high propelled by strong results from tech behemoths Google, Amazon and Microsoft.

The S&P had hit an intraday high of 2,120.92. The Nasdaq earlier reached 5,100.371, the highest since its intraday record of 5,132.52 in March 2000 that marked the peak of the dot-com bubble, Reuters reported.

"While markets are at record highs, March-quarter earnings of S&P 500 companies are expected to dip 1.3 per cent, with revenues dropping 3.5 per cent as the dollar hurts U.S. multinationals and low oil prices affect energy companies, according to Thomson Reuters data.

The Dow Jones industrial average closed up 21.45 points, or 0.12 per cent, to 18,080.14. The S&P 500 gained 4.76 points and the Nasdaq Composite added 36.02 points. For the week, the S&P gained 1.8 per cent, the Nasdaq gained 3.3 per cent and the Dow added 1.4 per cent.

Asian markets were trading higher. Japan's Nikkei 225 index which was trading 0.04 per cent higher at 20,027, Hong Kong's Hang Seng index was trading 1.3 per cent higher at 28,437, and China's Shanghai index was trading 1.98 per cent higher at 4,480.