Market may start buoyant

The benchmark indices, Sensex and Nifty, are expected to commence on a firm note and witness significant rally during intra-day trades, as international markets backed by firm US and Asian indices may help the sentiment remain buoyant. Among the Asian majors, Nikkei has surged 17 points at 15751 while Hang Seng has scaled up 107 points at 19115. On the technical front, the Nifty could test in the 3960-3980 range on the upside and has support at 3900, while the Sensex has a likely support at 13550 and may face resistance at 13700.

US indices posted steady gains on Tuesday with the Dow Jones moving five points up to close at 12322, while the Nasdaq added two points to close at 2455.

Except Infosys, which was down 3%, all the Indian floats had a decent outing on the US bourses. Rediff was the biggest gainer and rose 5.26% while Patni Computer scaled up 4.54%. MTNL, ICICI Bank and Tata Motors jumped over 2% each while Satyam, Wipro, Dr Reddy's, and VSNL gained over 1% each.

Crude oil prices in the US market moved up, with the Nymex Light crude oil for January delivery moving up by $1.37 to close at $60.17 a barrel. In the Commodity segment, the Comex gold for December series gained $6.60 to settle at $628.70 a troy ounce.

On Nov 20 2006, FIIs were net buyers of stocks to the tune of Rs 58.00 crore (purchases worth Rs3421.50 crore and sales of Rs3363.50 crore) while domestic mutual funds were net sellers of stocks to the tune of Rs285.78 crore (purchases worth Rs500.70 crore and sales of Rs786.48 crore).