What to look out for this week: Corporate heavyweights' earnings in focus

India’s stock markets have started to face the corporate earnings headwinds in full. It has been a mixed set of earnings so far, with IT heavyweights Infosys and TCS reporting weaker-than-expected growth. Some of the largest private banks such as IndusInd Bank, Yes Bank and HDFC Bank have reported steady profits and net interest income, but IndusInd and Yes Bank have been impacted by higher provisioning for bad loans.

As seen in the previous week, the global geopolitical tensions have started to increase particularly between the United States and North Korea. This will continue to have an impact on the global markets, and also India.   

India Q4FY17 (January to March) earnings data
This week, in the banking and financial services space, the key earnings will come from Axis Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, IDFC Bank and insurer ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Company. This set of earnings will indicate how the private banks have performed over the last fiscal of the financial year. Other earnings which are set to be announced this week include Reliance Industries (April 24), IT major Wipro (April 25); car maker Maruti Suzuki and Biocon on April 27 and Ambuja Cement on Friday (April 28).

Analysts have cautioned that most automobile makers -- particularly two and three-wheelers -- are expected to experience some amount of uncertainty in view of the recent Supreme Court decision which last month announced a ban on the sale and registration of vehicles which are not compliant with BS IV emission norms, across the country. Even as other earnings come in, India’s stock markets are thus expected to consolidate further at current levels as investors take calculated investment decisions.

French presidential elections 2017
The world will also closely watch events as they pan out in the French presidential elections in coming weeks, which will determine the future for their region and impact European markets, the euro and the dollar, which are likely to stay volatile in the coming days. The European markets and the euro rose on Monday after the initial projection of the first round of voting on Sunday revealed that centrist Emmanuel Macron is likely to contest the runoff round later in May, against far-right leader Marine Le Pen.