Of Rising Crude Oil Prices, Nifty IT Index, And Top Cues In Focus Today

Share markets in India closed on a flat note yesterday.

At the closing bell yesterday, the BSE Sensex stood higher by 22 points and the NSE Nifty closed up by 3 points. The BSE Mid Cap index ended the day down by 0.6%, while the BSE Small Cap index ended the day down by 0.9%.

Profit booking was witnessed in metal stocks, capital goods stocks, consumer durables stocks, and power stocks ahead of January month expiry in the derivatives segment.

Top Stocks in Focus Today

From the energy sector, ONGC share price will be in focus today. The company has entered into short-term loan agreements with three banks to part-fund its acquisition of HPCL. Accordingly, the company has entered into agreements with Punjab National Bank, Axis Bank and Bank of India on 22 January for loans totalling to Rs 180.6 billion. The agreements are for short-term loans to part-finance the acquisition of HPCL.

Wipro share price will also be in focus today. The company announced that it won a multi-year business process services engagement with Nilfiska leading global supplier of professional cleaning equipment and solutions, headquartered in Denmark.

From the telecom space, market participants will also be tracking Idea cellular share price and Bharti Airtel share price. This comes as deep-pocketed Reliance Jio has launched newer and cheaper tariff plans to intensify competition once again. The new plans are seen to offer more data for the same price, along with introducing a cheaper price point.

From the mining sector, Coal India share price will also be in focus today. The company’s board has empowered subsidiaries to fix their own floor prices for e-auctions, which is expected to help the monopoly get higher rates. Reportedly, the subsidiaries are now free to fix any floor price, which could be more than 20% for non-power consumers and 10% for power consumers. If demand for a particular source of coal is very high, Coal India subsidiaries are now free to fix prices that could fetch them additional revenue.