As India Inc enters the last leg of the earnings season, financial results of blue-chip corporate earnings, auto sales data, macroeconomic data, foreign fund flows and global cues will be in focus on Dalal Street this week. A bunch of blue-chip companies including Bharti Airtel, ONGC and Coal India will report their quarterly performances during the four-day, holiday-truncated trading week.

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The week that was

Indian equity benchmarks Sensex and Nifty clocked their third back-to-back weekly gains on Friday. Investors remained on the back foot ahead of a third straight hike in the COVID-era repo rate — the benchmark interest rate at which the RBI lends money to commercial banks — last week, as central banks scramble to fight high inflation with a tighter supply of money.

IT, auto and metal shares were among the biggest boosts for headline indices.

A total of 36 stocks in the Nifty50 basket saw weekly gains.

Mahindra & Mahindra, Adani Ports, JSW Steel, Cipla, PowerGrid, Infosys and Asian Paints — clocking weekly gains of 4-6 percent each — were the top gainers.

On the other hand, Britannia, Tata Consumer, HDFC Life, Sun Pharma, SBI Life and Hero MotoCorp — down around 2-5 percent each — were among the top blue-chip laggards.

Broader markets also strengthened for the week.

The road ahead

Analysts believe the bulls need to help the Nifty50 take out key hurdles decisively to continue to rise.

"The Nifty has been taking a breather after a sharp surge and it’s healthy. It’s more of a time-wise correction so far as the index is still holding around the upper range of its consolidation zone. A decisive close above 17,400 would further fuel the momentum towards the 17,700-17,800 zone, else rangebound moves would continue," said Ajit Mishra, VP-Research at Religare Broking.

He sees major support for the index at 17,150-16,800 levels. "Since we’re seeing rotational buying across sectors, participants should continue with a stock-specific trading approach and utilise dips to add quality names," he added.

Here are the key factors and events that are likely to influence Dalal Street in the week beginning Aug 8:

DOMESTIC CUES

Macroeconomic data

Separate data on consumer inflation and industrial production in the country are due on Friday.

Industry body SIAM will release monthly data on production, sales and exports on the same day.

Corporate earnings

A slew of companies will report their financial results during the course of the week.

FII activity

The flow of institutional investors' money will remain in focus on Dalal Street.

GLOBAL CUES