Upmove may continue

Increasing investors' confidence for heavyweight and other sectoral stocks coupled with firm global indices and continuing higher domestic fund inflows could see the market extend its winning streak. However, caution should be maintained as higher bouts of intra-day volatility is likely to persist on the back of RBI's move to restrict the banks from lending funds from money market operations for customer credit. Key local indices, the Nifty could test higher levels around 3785 in the short term and has a key support at 3740. The Sensex is likely to test 12880 on the downside while it may face resistance at 13000.

U.S. indices rallied sharply on Wednesday after investors viewed a statement from the Federal Reserve as signaling the central bank's next move may be a cut in interest rates., with the Dow Jones soaring by 1.30% or 159 points while Nasdaq also ended firm with gains of 47 points at 2456.

All the Indian ADRs witnessed decent to firm buying support. VSNL was the major gainer amongst the ADRs and vaulted over 5%, while ICICI Bank gained over 4%. Infosys, Satyam, Wipro, Dr Reddy's, Tata Motors, Patni computers and HDFC Bank were up over 2-3% each.

Crude oil prices moved up, while the Nymex light crude oil for May series went up by 36 cents at $59.61 a barrel. In the commodity segment, the Comex gold shot up by a dollar to settle at $660 an ounce.