Except for the firm openings, markets remained weak throughout the day. The Sensex opened at 4972.81. However, as index-based counters faced huge selling pressure, the Sensex lost around 108 points compared to its previous close of 4943.14 points, but closed marginally higher than the day's low.

With a fall of over four per cent, Infosys was the main contributor to this fall. In fact, Infosys opened weak and except for an intra-day rally, it remained weak for major part of the day. NIIT was also down by more than 5 per cent.

And after some hectic buying spree that was witnessed in the cement counters over the last few days, the cement stocks too came in for a round of correction on Thursday. While the BSE Sensex dipped 106.23 points to 4836.91, the S&P CNX Nifty on the NSE lost 28.25 points and closed at 1448.95 points.

For Friday, the last day of trading in the current settlement on the BSE, market players are almost sure of a weak opening. However, according to Ambareesh Baliga at Kotak Securities, ``We might see some delivery-based buying towards the end of the session on Friday.''

Also, according to Chirag Sanghvi at Asit C Mehta Investment Intermediaries,, the expectation of good gains has not materialised over the week. ``Rather the operators have seen substantial loss in their holdings, and to carry forward their positions, they have to pay some additional margins and also pay badla. In such a situation, carrying forward might not be a viable option,'' says Sanghvi. However, despite being out of favour recently, some hope is being pinned on the ITC results due this Friday.

According to Sanghvi, ``In case the company declares a good result, the market might trade sideways, else we can see some more points off the Sensex.''

Satyam was one counter where FIIs have been selling during the last two days. Amidst selling pressure from FIIs and operators, on Thursday it hit the lower circuit and closed at Rs 1525, down Rs 200 from its recent high of Rs 1725 the day before.

On Thursday, the Satyam counter on the BSE witnessed 15.9 lakh shares being sold; this was in addition to 20.4 lakh shares sold on Wednesday. According to brokers, a lot of small investors were caught off-guard as they had entered into the stock on hopes of good returns after a dream-debut of Satyam Infoway on the Nasdaq on Tuesday.

For the Sensex, a sharp fall in counters like Ranbaxy, MTNL, Tisco, and SBI also proved costly. Reliance managed to show huge buying but failed to post major gains. It managed to touch a peak of Rs 268. Reliance Petro also showed buying interest during the second half of the day.

-- With inputs from Deepak Singh Tanwar