Market may remain cautious

The market is likely to remain cautious and witness sideways movement during intra-day trades. The US market closed flat and major Asian indices like Nikkei and Hang Seng have fallen by around 1% each in the morning trades; this may trigger early selling in the domestic market. On the technical side, the Nifty may get support at 5100 and test higher levels of 5168 while the Sensex may face resistance at 17580 and find support at 17300 on the downside.

The US indices finished on a flat note on Monday. The Dow Jones ended in positive at 13028, up 41 points, whereas the Nasdaq was down by 13 points at 2516.

Indian floats largely had a mixed trend on the US bourses. Rediff rose 2.20% at $8.84, VSNL gained 1.42% at $24.20, HDFC Bank gained 1.12% at $109.26 and Wipro advanced 1.13% at $13.42. MTNL and ICICI Bank ended with steady gains. Among the laggards, Infosys was the major loser with a loss of 1.09% at $45.51 followed by Satyam, which dropped 0.27% at $26.34. Dr Reddy's tumbled 0.13% at $15.20, Tata Motors lost 0.37% at $15.96 and Patni Computers slumped over 0.52% at $13.41.

Crude oil prices in the US market edged higher, with the Nymex light crude oil for June delivery gaining 76 cents to close at $127.05 a barrel. In the commodity space, the Comex gold for June series flared up $5.90 to settle at $905.80 a troy ounce.