Northbound journey may continue

The overnight gains in international markets and positive opening in most of the Asian indices in ongoing trades may help the local market advance further. Among the key indices, the Nifty can see an up- move till 4450 levels and has a key support at 4350 levels in the near-term. The Sensex has a likely support at 14650 and may face resistance at 14950.

Major US indices finished positive on monday, with oil and technology shares leading the way as investors scooped up shares hit in the recent retreat, at the start of a holiday-shortened trading week. While the Dow Jones gained by 91 points at 8529, the Nasdaq moved up by 6 points to close at 1844.

Indian ADRs were mostly mixed on the US bourses. MTNL notched up significant gains and soared over 7.62% while Patni Computers, Satyam, Dr Reddy's and VSNL moved up between 1-3% each. Select floats witnessed selling pressure. Tata Motors led the slump and dropped over 3% while Infosys, Wipro, ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank were down nearly half-a-percent each.

Crude oil prices moved up sharply, with the Nymex light crude oil for August delivery gained $2.33 to close at $71.49 a barrel. In the commodity space, the Comex gold for August delivery lost 30 cents to settle at $940.70 an ounce.