Downtrend may continue

The market is likely to witness a cautious trend as major Asian gauges like the Nikkei, the Hang Seng index, the Kospi index and the Jakarta index have lost marginally in the current trades and the US market ended on a negative note last night. Also, the domestic indices received a heavy pounding last week and lost over 750 points. On the technical side, the Nifty could target higher levels of 5000 and find support at 4900 while the Sensex may face resistance at 16980 and find support at 16546. Corporates like Kalpataru Power, HTML Global, Omaxe, Parle Software and JMC Projects are expected to announced their numbers.

US indices closed on a negative note on Friday. The Dow Jones lost 146 points at 12480 whereas the Nasdaq was down 20 points at 2445.

Indian floats ended lower. Rediff was the major loser dropped 10.11%, while ICICI Bank, Satyam, Wipro and Infosys dropped nearly 2-3% each. Tata Motors, HDFC Bank and VSNL dropped nearly 1% each. Dr Reddy's was the only gainer amongst the ADRs and gained 2.83%.

Crude oil prices in the international market advanced on Friday, with the Nymex US light crude oil for July delivery up $1.38 to close at $132.19 a barrel. In the commodity space, the Comex gold gained $7.50 to settle at $925.80 an ounce.

Daily trend of FII/MF investment in equities

On May 22, 2008 FIIs were net sellers of stocks to the tune of Rs550.70 crore (purchases worth Rs2,226 crore and sales of Rs2,776.70 crore) while domestic mutual funds were net sellers of stocks to the tune of Rs92.20 crore (purchases worth Rs548.80 crore and sales of Rs640.90 crore).