Factors that will guide the markets this week

Trading in stock markets this week will be majorly influenced by the upcoming quarterly earnings from IT majors TCS and Infosys, along with global trends, analysts said.

Besides, global oil benchmark Brent crude, rupee-dollar trend and trading activity of foreign investors would also dictate the movement, they said.

"On the domestic front, all eyes will be on the beginning of corporate performance for the third quarter of the current fiscal year.

"Market participants will be keeping an eye on the movement of the rupee against the dollar and crude oil prices.

"Investments by Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) and Domestic Institutional Investors (DIIs) will also be monitored," said Pravesh Gour, senior technical analyst at Swastika Investmart Ltd.

Infosys and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) will announce their earnings on Thursday while the quarterly results of HCL Technologies and Wipro will be out on Friday.

Sunny Agrawal, head of fundamental equity research, SBI Securities Ltd, said, the third quarter result season which will kick start from the second week of January is the immediate major factor to watch out for.

From the macroeconomic front, inflation data for December and industrial production for November are scheduled to be announced post-market hours on Friday.

"The market will react to the domestic and global macroeconomic data, global bond yields, crude oil inventories, movement of the dollar index, FII and DII investment activities," Arvinder Singh Nanda, senior vice-president of Master Capital Services Ltd, said.

The US inflation data, initial jobless claims, China inflation data and the UK GDP will also be watched, Nanda added.

Last week, the BSE benchmark declined 214.11 points or 0.29 per cent, and the Nifty dipped 20.6 points or 0.09 per cent.

"We expect the markets to take cues from the upcoming earnings season which will be kick-started by TCS and Infosys on 11th January.

"HCL Tech, Wipro, and HDFC Life are a few others that will announce their results this week," Siddhartha Khemka, head - retail research, Motilal Oswal Financial Services Ltd, said.