Outlook remains positive

The positive global cues and firm opening in most of the Asian indices in ongoing trades coupled with strong buying interest in most of sectoral stocks may help the local market advance further. However, bouts of strong intra-day volatile moves and the FIIs remaining net sellers of equities may weigh on the sentiment. But, the fall in oil prices may release some pressure. Among the key indices, the Nifty can see an up- move till 5900-6200 levels and has a key support at 5600 levels in the near-term. The Sensex has a likely support at 18800 and may face resistance at 19500.

Major US indices finished with marginal gains on Friday, as investors welcomed the comments from the Fed chief that more rate cuts are on the way, but gains are limited on the back of weakness in technology stocks. While the Dow Jones gained by 60 points at 13372, the Nasdaq slipped by seven points to close at 2661.

Most of the Indian ADRs posted gains on the US bourses on Friday. VSNL led the pack with the gains of 13.39%, while MTNL surged 7.59%. HDFC Bank, Tata Motors, Infosys, Wipro, Rediff, Patni Computer and Dr Reddy's gained over 1-3% each. However, Satyam fell over 1%.

Oil prices fell below $89 on Friday on expectations that OPEC will decide to increase output at its meeting in this week. The Nymex light crude oil for January delivery slipped by $2.30 to close at $88.71 a barrel. In the commodity space, the Comex gold for February delivery tumbled $13.20 to settle at $789.10 an ounce.