Sensex, Nifty to open on a flat note

Dow Jones futures are flat while Asian markets are upbeat. The Indian equity markets staged a smart come back on Friday with indices registering its best gains in 2016.

The much awaited Budget session of Parliament begins today and attention will be on what the mood in Parliament is during this session. While Rail Budget and Economic Survey later this week and the Union Budget on Monday will be keenly watched the coming days will also reveal to what extent the government is able to take care of proceedings in Parliament. The agitation in Haryana had reportedly caused a damage of  Rs 18,000-Rs 20,000 crore by way of loss to public and private property and halting trade, industry, small business and transport, says an Assocham report. Several auto companies in Manesar had to suspend operations due to the protests.

The outlook for the stock market is a flat start. Dow Jones futures are flat while Asian markets are upbeat. The Indian equity markets staged a smart come back on Friday with indices registering its best gains in 2016. The rupee came exceedingly close to surpassing its previous all time low of Rs68.80 per US$ which it had hit in August 2013.Sentiment undoubtedly was hurt after SBI said that NPAs could rise in the fourth quarter too. The courts have swung into action with the Supreme Court stepping in regarding two issues, banks' bad loans and unviable air routes.

Reliance Industries (RIL) Chairman Mukesh Ambani said that the telecom unit is "ready" to roll out its fourth-generation (4G) services, and will cover 80% of India's 1.3 billion population by the second half of 2016.

Filtra Consultants and Engineers will consider issue of bonus shares while Vertex Securities board will meet to mull issue and allotment of the equity shares. Mahindra Cie Automotive and Zyden Gentec will announce their results.

Tata Consultancy Services is raising the notice period for its Indian employees to three months starting March, from just a month previously, at a time with the Indian IT sector is grappling with higher attrition.

India’s foreign exchange reserves surged by $347.2 mn in the week ended February 12 to $351.83 billion, according to RBI data.

The BJP government is seeking to step up its drive to modernise the railways by increasing investment in creating new capacity and assets by 20-30 per cent in the rail budget.

Ratan Tata accused older airlines of lobbying with the Government not to relax the 5/20 rule and that they were afraid of facing competition from the two new carriers where the Tata group is a shareholder. The 5/20 rule makes it mandatory for domestic airlines to have five years of operational history in India and have a fleet of at least 20 planes to commence overseas flights.

Start-ups in India are expected to raise $700 mn (Rs. 4,792 crore at $1 = Rs. 68.46) and create 5,000 jobs in next 12 months, according to a report by InnoVen Capital.

Bharti Airtel Limited (“Airtel”), India’s largest telecommunications services provider, has become the first mobile operator in India to commercially deploy LTE-Advanced (4G+) technology (carrier aggregation across TD LTE and LTE FDD) on a LIVE 4G network.