Choppy trades to continue

The Sensex swung over 500 points during intra-day trades and gained 0.11% at the close on Wednesday across-the-board selling pressure. The bouts of strong intra-day volatile moves, dwindling FII inflows and expiry pressures in the derivate segment may weigh on the sentiment. A strong positive opening in most of the Asian indices in ongoing trades may help the local market advance further. However, overnight losses in European and US markets may hurt the market sentiment. Among the key indices, the Nifty may resist at 5600 and has a key support at 5400 levels in the near-term. The Sensex has a likely support at 18000 and may face resistance at 19000. ABB, Ballarampur Chini, Cairn India, Century Textiles, Chambal Ferilisers, Cummins India, Federal Bank, Glaxo, JSW Steel, NIIT Tech, Reliance Capital, SRF, Sun Pharmaceuticals and Voltas are expected to announce their quarterly numbers.

US Stocks remained in negative territory for better part of the session on Wednesday on new housing and subprime woes, before paring some losses on speculation that the Federal Reserve may take additional action. While the Dow Jones slipped marginally to close at 13675, the Nasdaq slipped about 0.88% or by 25 points at 2775.

Indian floats trading on the US bourses had a mixed outing. Among the gainers HDFC Bank, VSNL and MTNL rose over 1-2% each. Infosys, Satyam, Wipro, Dr Reddy's, Tata Motors, Rediff, Patni Computer and ICICI Bank slipped around 1-4% each.

Crude oil prices jumped over $85, with the Nymex light crude oil for December delivery rising by $1.83 to close at $85.27 a barrel. In the commodity segment, the Comex gold for December series flared up $2.50 to settle at $765.60 an ounce.