Local equity markets ended the lacklustre session of trade in the red on Wednesday as global weakness weighed on sentiments. The bulls never looked convinced for the good rally on the indices as downward revision of the Japan's annualized growth rate for July-September period to 1.3% from earlier reported 4.8% fuelled concerns about the early global recovery. Back home, markets languished in the negative territory during entire session except for the very brief period of time around noon trades. Metals led by Tata Steel, Hindalco Industries and Sterlite Industries took it on the chin from the bears as dollar surged against other currencies. Banking, power and oil & gas counters were the other major losers in trade. Selective buying was witnessed in software, technology and auto sector stocks. Maruti Suzuki surged over two and a half percent in trade after some media reports indicated that Volkswagen was likely to pick up 20% stake in its parent company Suzuki Motors. Finally, the BSE Sensex plunged 102.46 points or 0.59% to close at 17,125.22, while the S&P CNX Nifty tumbled 35.95 points or 0.70% to settle at 5112.

The US markets closed with modest gains on Wednesday, the concerns of mounting debt was still looming as the Standard & Poor reduced the outlook on Spain's debt rating, though a slight dip in dollar again fuelled commodity and energy stocks. In recent days the investors' concern has risen on growing debt loads in countries like Greece and Spain as well as the US and Britain that could signal that the threat of defaults and higher borrowing costs might impede the economic recovery. The Dow Jones industrial average closed up by 51.08 points, or 0.50%, to 10,337.05. The Standard & Poor's 500 index added 3.95 points, or 0.37%, to 1,095.94, while the Nasdaq composite index rose 10.74 points, or 0.49%, to 2,183.73.

The crude prices continued to decline on Wednesday and touched its two months low after the Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported that the nation's consumption of petroleum products fell to its lowest level since the week of July 10. Benchmark crude for January delivery gave up $1.95 to settle at $70.67 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. In London, Brent crude for January delivery fell $2.80 to settle at $72.39 on the ICE Futures exchange.

The Indian rupee made some recovery on Wednesday despite the volatility in the stock markets. The rupee made a weak start as the dollar strengthened against other major currencies overseas and the sentiments were getting support from the equity markets which lost more than half a percent, but the dollar declined once again in late hours supporting the domestic currency to close higher. Finally the rupees closed at 46.54/55, 13 paise stronger compared to its Tuesday's close of 46.67/68.

The FII on Wednesday were the net buyers in both equity as well as debt segments. In equity segment the gross buying was of Rs 2873.70 crore against gross sell of Rs 1879.60 crore, while in the debt segment the gross purchase was of Rs 820.20 crore with gross sales of Rs 4.30crore.

The US markets witnessed some recovery on Wednesday, some weakness in dollar boosted shares of financial, technology and natural resource companies also the commerce department reported that the  businesses added to inventories at the wholesale level in October. The Asian markets have made a mixed start and some of the indices are trading lower by about 1%.The domestic markets witnessed a choppy session in previous trading and are putting a resilient face compared to other global markets, the trade today is likely to remain range bound lacking any major trigger.

Support and Resistance: S&P CNX Nifty and BSE Sensex

                                                          Nifty Top volumes

• Unitech Wireless has sent a proposal to the government for entering the national and international long distance segments.
• Suzlon Energy has bagged 7th order from Rajasthan State Mines & Minerals for 31.5 MW of capacity.
• DoT has told Bharti Airtel to provide all required information to the auditor by December 14.
• Tata Steel sales in November rose 35% to 4.98 lakh tonne (YoY) while its November saleable steel production stood up 16% at 5.25 lakh tonne (YoY).
• Bajaj Auto has said that it will exit the scooter segment by the end of the fiscal to focus exclusively on motorcycles.