Market may remain under pressure

The Asian indices in the ongoing trades are in green and overnight gains in global market may help the local bourses to open on a positive note in early trades. However, it likely to extend its downward trend on account of unwinding of position of Jan series derivative contracts and yesterday's correction likely to keep the sentiment bearish. Among the major domestic indices, the Nifty could test 4044 on the downside and faces resistance at 4100. The Sensex has a likely support at 13940 and test higher levels of 114150.

US indices registered gains on Tuesday amid fresh rise in crude oil prices and worries of mixed earnings reports. While the Dow Jones rose by 57 points to close at 12534, the Nasdaq ended 0.34 points up at 2431.

Most of the Indian ADRs gained on the US bourses. Rediff gained 2.8% while MTNL, Infosys, Satyam,ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank gained over 1-2% each. While Dr Reddy's lab lost 4.69% and Tata Motors, Wipro , VSNL declined over 0.5-1% each.

Crude oil prices gained strength after slipping in the last few sessions. The Nymex light crude oil for March delivery rose $2.46 to close at $55.04. In the commodity space, the Comex gold for February series added $11.80 to settle at $645.90 a troy ounce.