Markets in Asia were mixed in early trade today while Wall Street continued its winning spree for the third day on Friday

The Indian share market is likely to witness a flat-to-positive opening on Monday, tracking mixed Asian markets in early trade today on global concerns. On the other hand, US markets continued their upmove into the third day on Friday on positive economic news with investors. The SGX Nifty, which opened higher, pared some early gains and was eight points up at 5,682 compared to its previous close of 5,674.

Domestic triggers for the week include the March futures and options contract expiry, infrastructure output, weekly food inflation, fiscal and trade deficit and factory output and auto sales numbers.

Last week the market closed with smart gains, mainly on institutional support and firm cues from the global arena. It had a negative bias at the close of the first day of the week, but climbed up and stayed positive on the other four days. The gains kept increasing, with the maximum registered on the last two days. The four-day rally and strong close changes the picture from a range-bound market to an uptrending market with the promise of further gains. The Nifty will now target 5,800 and the Sensex 19,400.

The market clocked gains of over 5% in the week (the best weekly gains since July 2009) with the Sensex closing on Friday at 18,816 and the Nifty at 5,654, their best closing levels since 27th January this year. The Sensex added a whopping 937 points and the Nifty jumped 281 points over the week.

The latest four-day rally (22nd March to 25th March) has added 977 points on the Sensex and 289 points on the Nifty. The rally has surpassed the three-day budget rally (28th February to 3rd March) when the Sensex gained 789 points and the Nifty 233 points.

Going forward there are tremendous headwinds like spiralling crude prices and inflationary pressures and the market will not run away at this stage. Besides, the next big trigger for the domestic market is the upcoming earnings season. Any entry into the market and specific stocks must be on the dips.

US markets continued their rally into the third day on Friday with Dow logging the best week since July last year. Positive economy news led investors to set aside worries of high oil prices, problems with Japan’s nuclear reactors and new developments in Europe's debt crisis, as Portugal looked likely to seek funds from the European Union. The US government said the economy grew at a 3.1% annual rate in the fourth quarter of 2010. Technology stocks rose after business software giant Oracle Corp. reported a 78% jump in income.

The Commerce Department reported that the economy, as measured by the gross domestic product (GDP), grew at an annual rate of 3.1% in the October-December quarter, an upward revision from last month’s 2.8% estimate for the same period. For the final three months of the year, consumer spending grew at an annual rate of 4%, the strongest showing in four years.

The Dow rose 50 points (0.41%) to 12,220.59. The S&P 500 added 4.14 points (0.32%) to 1,314 and the Nasdaq rose 6.64 points (0.24%) to 2,743.

Markets in Asia were mixed in early trade on Monday, on concerns within the region and across the world. The Nikkei 225, Japan’s benchmark was in the red as rising radiation levels hampered repairs at the country’s nuclear power plants. Political tensions in West Asia and the Middle East and renewed debt crisis in the Euro zone also kept investor sentiments low.

The Shanghai Composite gained 0.72%, the Hang Seng added 0.04% and the KLSE Composite rose 0.03%. On the other hand, the Jakarta Composite fell 0.18%, the Nikkei 225 declined 0.36%, the Straits Times was down 0.38%, the Seoul Composite shed 0.14% and the Taiwan Weighted fell 0.45% in early trade.

Back home, expressing concern over high costs and limited reach of banking services, finance minister Pranab Mukherjee on Sunday said that the government was working in collaboration with the Reserve Bank of India to address these concerns.

Mr Mukherjee also said that there was a need to “reflect upon possible flaws in our system and address them to withstand adversities. We need to make our financial sector more competitive by enhancing efficiency and transparency.”