Pre-market: Nifty seen opening flat; may retest 8100 level

NEW DELHI: The 50-share Nifty index is expected to open flat on Monday following muted trend seen in other Asian markets. Tracking the momentum, the index may retest its crucial psychological level of 8100 in trade today.

At 07:30 a.m., Nifty India stock futures in Singapore were trading 21 points lower at 8088 indicating negative opening on the domestic market.

The Nifty index fell for a fifth consecutive session on Friday to post its worst weekly fall since December 2011. Though some rebound was witnessed in the middle of the trade, but sudden fall in last one hour retraced all the gains and pushed benchmark in red again.

"We expect negative bias to extend further with immediate support at psychological mark of 8000 in Nifty," says Jayant Manglik, President-retail distribution, Religare Securities Limited.

"Traders are advised to maintain sell on rise approach and restrict your positions to highly liquid counters especially while trading stock options," he says.

The Nifty bounced back from the predefined support of 8050 on Thursday, and simultaneously reacted from the resistance at 8180 on Friday.

"While the bulls showed the follow-up and hit the first level of resistance, they have been unable to hold on to the gains. If the index falls further below Thursday's low, we may see margins getting triggered, and Nifty may create a lower low for the calendar year," GEPL Capital said in a report.

On Friday, US stocks slipped after data showed that US job growth accelerated sharply in May and wages picked up, signs of momentum in the economy that could revive expectations of an interest rate hike in September.

"Nonfarm payrolls increased by 280,000 last month, the largest gain since December, and above the 225,000 that economists polled by Reuters had expected. Average hourly earnings grew by eight cents," Reuters reported.

"The better-than-expected jobs report signaled that growth was gaining traction, but Wall Street took a dim view as a potential rate hike could increase the cost of borrowing," added the report.

The Dow Jones industrial average was down 56.12 points, or 0.31 per cent, at 17,849.46, the S&P 500 was down 3.01 points, or 0.14 per cent, at 2,092.83 and the Nasdaq Composite was up 9.33 points, or 0.18 per cent, at 5,068.46.

Japan's Nikkei 225 index which was trading 0.35 per cent lower at 20,390, Hong Kong's Hang Seng index was trading 0.67 per cent lower at 27,077, and China's Shanghai index was trading 0.07 per cent higher at 5027.