Mumbai, May 24: The markets traded in a narrow band of 140 points onWednesday. After a weak opening, mainly from the jitters of a 200-pointovernight fall in the US Nasdaq, the markets recovered gradually as suppliesdried up lower levels. Also, according to dealers, there were somefund-based buying in select counters including Infosys, HCL Tech, BPCL andHPCL. However, some selling during the fag end of the day resulted in theSensex closing marginally lower at 4933.65 - a net loss of 9.89 points overits previous closing of 3943.54.According to market players, the current trend in the market points towardsits search for a base.
According to Chirag Sanghvi at Asit C Mehta Investment Intermediaries, goingby the current movemnt of the Sensex, it looks like the market is creating abase for itself. ``While 3850 has emerged as a strong support level, on theupside, 4150 is a resistance level.
In case the market can hold on for a couple of trading sessions betweenthis range, we are likely to see some upward movement in the successivedays,'' said Sanghvi.
However, brokers are not predicting any market trend for the next few days.``The only good thing is that the magnitude of suppy of stocks havesubstantially slowed down, and this is a good sign,'' said a dealer with alocal brokerage house.
Thanks to a sharp drop on Nasdaq, Wednesday's opening in the domesticsoftware counters were extremely weak. However, after a dull movement in thefirst half, prices showed an improvement in the second half. The uptrendwas led by counters like HFCL, and Global Tele. Other software stocks alsoshowed smart rally from their low. The sensex could have shown a positiveclose had ITC remained firm. In the last 15 minutes, the stock came understrong selling pressure, and showed substantial loss. Mirroring thesentiment, the sensex opened at 3872.70 points, and dipped to a low of3840.11 points. The high for the day was 3981.46 points, whereas it closedat 3933.65 points. On the other hand, the S&P CNX Nifty gained 9 points at1233 points. The high for the day was 1246.25 points whereas the low for theday was 1201.50 points.
Meawhile, the trading volume on the BSE stood at Rs 2267.47 crore and thesame figure on the NSE stood at Rs 3784 crore. The number of advances stoodat 748, and the number of declines stood at 620. Around 167 stocks remainedunchanged. Meanwhile, stocks which gained more than 7.9 per cent were: HFCL,Sterlite, BSES, Rel Capital, HCPL, BPCL, Indogulf, Bom Dyeing, Amex Info,Aftek Info, Advent Comp, Cummins, Salora Int, Agro Dutch. Other gainers forthe day were: ACC, Asian Paints, Century, Castrol, Visualsoft, Esab, LML,Padmini Poly, Cyberspace, Kesoram, Adam Comsoft, Filmcity Media, Balaji Ind,Omax Auto, Century Enka, Kin Honda. Stocks which dipped more than 7.9 percent were: Vikas WSP, Polaris, Corp Bank, Hinduja Finance, Frontier Info,Atco, Gramophone, Cybermate, Parikh Plat, Federal Bank. Other losers forthe day were: Pentamedia, SSI, ITC, Aptech, Hughes Soft, TV 18, Crest Com,Max India, PSI Data, Anco Com, Alok Text, Apollo Hospitals, Melstar, JupiterOrga.
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