Market may remain cautious

The market is likely to remain under pressure following an overnight fall on the US market and weakness among major Asian indices in the ongoing trades and it may exhibit strong volatility during the intra-day trades. However, prevailing bullish sentiment may help the market to get some buying support in initial trades. Among the key local indices, the Nifty could decline to 2750 on the downside while on the upside there is a near term resistance at 2850. The Sensex has a likely support at 8850 and may face resistance at 9150.

US indices tumbled Thursday, as rising oil and gold prices, a weaker dollar and more dour reads on the economy gave investors a reason to step back after the recent rally. While the Dow Jones tumbled by 86 points to close at 7401, the Nasdaq dropped 8 points at 1483.

Major Indian ADRs, too, buckled under selling pressure on the US bourses. Dr Reddy slipped 6.31%, Tata Motors declined 3.60%, ICICI Bank dropped 3.96%, HDFC Bank lost 3% and Rediff lost 1.26% while MTNL and VSNL slipeed marginally. However, Infosys, Satyam, Wipro and Patni Computers closed with the marginal gains.

Crude oil prices gained sharply, with the Nymex light crude oil for April series gains by $3.47 to close at $51.61 a barrel. In the commodity space, the Comex gold for April series gained $69.70 to settle at $958.80 a troy ounce.