Buying in the old economy counters was led mainly by Reliance, which closed at Rs 364, its all-time high close, and also ITC joining the fray. According to brokers, market outlook is confusing but the majority is expecting a fall to come in after the result announcements from the leading corporates are over. Also, the lacklustre buying by the FIIs and mutual funds is a cause for worry, although Sebi's FII figure for Wednesday show a Rs 98 crore net inflow.

However, there are words of caution from the broking community about Friday's market. With BSE remaining open for only two hours in the morning and NSE having normal trading hours, speculators might utilise the chance to manipulate prices either by jacking up or by hammering particular counters when one of the exchanges is closed. Due to security reasons for Prime Minister's visit to the BSE on Sunday, the BSE's normal trading session on Friday will be between 9 am and 11 am and badla trading between 3pm and 4 pm.

On Thursday, among the software stocks, Visualsoft was the biggest loser among the IT counter, which witnessed heavy selling, mainly from the funds. It closed Rs 613 down at Rs 5986, after hitting a low of Rs 5543 during the day. Also Aptech's Q2 results were disappointing for the market as the counter witnessed heavy selling and closed Rs 49 down at Rs 903.

As a group, pharma shares were the star performers as most of the pivotals from this industry showed positive close on the face of a general selloff in the market.

On Thursday, the Sensex traded in a narrow range. Reliance managed to attract huge investment buying, and showed a gain of more than 3 per cent. It closed at an all-time high of Rs 364. In terms of volume also, the counter reported huge volume of around 146 lakh shares on the BSE. But the overall sentiment remained negative. The software stocks started the day on a weak note, and remained weak for a major part of the day. Barring few counters, the close for large number of software stocks was negative. Other counters like L&T, ICICI, Ranbaxy, and HLL remained weak, and affected the Sensex.

Mirroring the sentiment, the BSE sensitive index opened at 4862.99 points, touched a peak of 4908.34 points, and closed at 4885 points. The low for the day was 4846.64 points.

Similarly, the S&P CNX Nifty dipped nine points and closed at 1517 points. The low for the day was 1504.05 points whereas the high was 1525.15 points. On the BSE, the number of advances stood at 576, and the number of declines was at 945. At the same time, 167 stocks remained unchanged.

The BSE trading volume stood at Rs 3,260 crore, and the same figure on the NSE was Rs 4,424 crore.