Slide may continue

After registering the loss of over 650 points in yesterday's trades, the market is likely to exhibit weak trends on the back of a strong intra-day volatile moves. The meltdown in US markets on concerns that losses from mortgage defaults will spread through the economy and mixed Asian indices in morning trades likely to put pressure on the domestic indices. On the upside, the Nifty could test around the 5748 level and may witness support around the 5475 level. The Sensex has a likely support at 18300 and may test higher levels of 19280.

US indices slumped on Wednesday, with the Dow closing at a 7-month low, on worries about the credit and mortgage market and higher oil prices. The Dow Jones sliding over 211 points to close at 12799 while the Nasdaq slipping by 35 points at 2562 amid weak tech stocks.

Indian stocks trading on the US bourses fell sharply. VSNL tumbled over 8% and ICICI Bank slipped over 7%, while HDFC Bank, Tata Motors, Infosys, Satyam, Wipro, MTNL, Rediff, DR Reddy's and Patni Computers were down over 2-6% each.

Crude oil prices in the global market slipped marginally on Wednesday. The Nymex light crude oil for January series slipped 74 cents at $97.29 per barrel. In the commodity segment, the Comex gold for December delivery moved up by $7.20 to settle at $798.60an ounce.