Indices

The Sensex closed at another record high on Friday and is now just 40 points away from breaching another historic high of 26,000 points. It looks certain that this landmark would be breached on Monday itself when the markets open for trade.

The sharp rise during this week can once again be attributed to heavy buying by foreign funds. On Thursday and Friday they net bought in the cash markets to the tune of almost Rs 2000 crores.

This week also saw some action in the primary market with reports that Lavasa Corporation may launch its IPO, while reports emerged that Indigo and Videocon's D2H arm may both launch IPO's sometime later this year.

Autos were in the limelight following better than expected numbers from the likes of Maruti and Mahindra and Mahindra. In fact, auto numbers for the month of June surprised positively. Hero Motor Corp saw some selling pressure after the stock became ex-dividend. Friday also saw some rebound in the stock price of heavyweight Reliance Industries.

Select mid cap stocks saw heavy buying including the likes of UCO Bank, Adani Ports and P C Jeweller.

Going ahead apart from the Union Budget, there are the results of Infosys which will be delivered on July 11, a day after the Union Budget. Analysts are not going into the results on expectations of a very robust performance. In fact, brokerages are expecting margins to fall as rupee appreciation is factored in along with increase in employee costs.

Clearly, it's going to be a volatile week ahead as we look at the Union Budget. Markets have already run-up too fast and there is an element of risk, if the Union Budget fails to take bold decisions. It's best to wait and watch at this stage.

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