Market eyes Obama's speech, key earnings

The Indian market snapped an eight-session losing streak on Tuesday. The Sensex closed at 19561.04 climbing 100.47 while the Nifty managed to end above 5900. All eyes are now on the US President Barack Obama's state of the union address. Will it be able to give the Indian market another leg up? Excerpts provided by the white house indicate the president will lay out a plan for economic growth seeking to attract jobs from overseas.

Hoping for some positive moves, the Dow & S&P 500 closed at 5-year high amidst choppy session in the US, Europe too ends higher & Asia kicked off trade on a muted note.

Back home, in key earnings today- a CNBC-TV18 poll sees Tata Steel's December quarter consolidated PAT negative on account of higher interest costs and low overall margins. Domestic profitability may yet again be nullified by European business. Coal India may report 9% sales growth & 2% profit due to higher sales volume and production but margins are seen contracting.

Other companies that are expected to post third quarter earnings today are BPCL, IOC, JSW Steel, MMTC, NMDC, Unitech and Natco Pharma.

Meanwhile, Kingfisher Airlines' bankers finally run out of patience as lenders consortium decided to recall loans to the grounded carrier. Bankers are not satisfied with the revival plan put forward by Vijay Mallya and will explore all avenues to recover their loans.

International markets

European shares too ended higher after Britain's third biggest lender Barclays unveiled cost cuts and a strategic overhaul that fueled expectations its peer group would follow suit.

Euro group ministers, who are attending a two-day summit in Brussels, have discussed potential currency wars but are insisting that they are standing by a market-based foreign exchange system. This, when fears are rising that an appreciation in the euro, will hurt the region's economy.

In the currency space- euro is stable above 1.34 while the dollar index holds above 80 levels. In commodities sector,  brent crude is above the 118 dollar mark after OPEC, in a monthly report, raised the outlook for the amount of crude the group expects would be needed in 2013 to keep supply and demand in balance. Among the precious metals, gold is trading around 1651 dollar levels.

Nasrin.sultana@network18online.com