Sensex to trade weaker

Headlines for the day

Sparsh BPO lowest bidder for BSNL's BPO deal

Reliance Communications ties up with moko.mobi for value-added services

Ministry may review sale of 12 risky drugs

Unitech cuts debt 26% in first half

Mahindra & Mahindra explores CNG, passenger variants for Gio

Events for the day

Major corporate action: Ex-date for consolidation of shares and reduction of capital of Orient Press

Market Commentary

On a day when there are mixed cues coming from the global markets, Sensex is expected to remain range-bound and volatile in the days trade. On back of the rising optimism on the economic recovery front, on Monday, the major US and European indices rose by close to 1% each. However, in today's trade, the major Asian indices gave a mixed bag performance. With Nikkei 225 fell sharply by losing 2.31%, while Hang Seng and Jakarta Composite fell by 0.42% and 0.11% respectively. On the gainers front, China's Shanghai Composite rose the most with gains of 1.17%, while rest all major indices were trading marginally higher. Even Singapore Nifty that opened lower, at the time of writing this report was currently trading 31 points lower to its previous day’s settlement price. Such mixed signals may result in Sensex opening weaker and remain choppy in today's trade. Among the local indices, the Nifty could test the 4750- 4800 range on the up side, while on the down side it could find support at 4620 and 4550. The Sensex is likely to get support at 15400 and may face resistance at 16050.

With better-than-expected numbers of the ISM index, the stocks in the US closed higher on a highly volatile day, wherein major US indices closed with marginal gains. Dow closed with gains of about 77 points or 0.79% higher at 9789, while S&P 500 rose by 0.65% and Nasdaq jumped by 0.20%.

Among the Indian ADRs trading on the US bourses, only MTNL and Satyam traded in red with losses of 1.72% and 2.84% respectively. While rest all ADR's traded in green with gains in the range of 0.83%-6.57% each, wherein Infosys Technologies gaining least and VSNL surged the most.

In the commodity space, Crude oil prices rose marginally, with the Nymex light crude oil for December series surging by $1.13 to close at $78.13 a barrel. In the metals space, the Comex Gold for December series jumped by $13.60 to settle at $1054.00 a troy ounce, while Comex Silver for December series rose by $0.19 to settle at $16.44 a troy ounce.