Friday marked another day of consolidation for local equity markets ahead of earnings season, which will officially kick start this week. The key indices witnessed marginal losses in trade led mainly by selling in information technology majors - Infosys, TCS and Wipro. Markets got off to a flat start in the morning underpinned by the gains in most of the Asian markets and higher close for the Wall Street. But lack of buying at higher levels pushed the domestic markets in the red within first hour of trade and they lingered in a tight range with negative bias till afternoon trades. They managed to recoup all their losses in the afternoon session but late selling, again dragged them lower to hit fresh intraday lows. The BSE Sensex and the S&P CNX Nifty closed below the psychological levels of 17,600 and 5250, respectively. The apprehensions of stimulus exit have receded a bit after the food price inflation for the week ended December 26 showed marginal softening. However, investors opted to remain on the sidelines ahead of the next week that brings lots of action on economy as well as on corporate front. Realty, capital goods and power stocks managed to lure marketmen in trade. The broader indices also continued to beat the benchmark indices. The advance-decline ratio on the BSE stood at 1.47:1. Finally, the BSE Sensex declined 75.43 points or 0.43% to settle at 17,540.29, while the S&P CNX Nifty declined 18.35 points or 0.35% to shut shop at 5244.75.

The US markets closed modestly higher on Friday, the much awaited jobs report came disappointing and put the investors in cautious mood but the revision of November's report showed the first job gains in nearly two years and were able to put some confidence among investors. The Labor Department reported that employers cut 85,000 jobs in December, much more than what analysts expected. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 11.33 points, or 0.11%, to 10,618.19. The Standard & Poor's 500 index closed higher by 3.29 points, or 0.29%, to 1,144.98 while the Nasdaq composite index rose 17.12 points, or 0.74%, to 2,317.17.

Crude prices edged higher on Friday after the dollar turned weak on report of job loss. The government reported Friday that 85,000 jobs were lost in December, more than expected, the Labor Department report sent the dollar sharply lower early in the day which boosted the crude prices. Benchmark crude rose 9 cents to settle at $82.75 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. In London, Brent crude for February delivery fell 13 cents to settle at $81.37 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.

The Indian rupee pared some of its gains on Friday, after touching its 15 month high in previous trading. The decline in the domestic share markets put pressure on the domestic currency on the same time the dollar inched higher against other major currencies. The dollar hit a four-month high against the yen on Friday on growing expectations that a key US jobs report would point to an improving economy. Finally the rupee closed at 45.77, 10 paise lower compared to its Thursday's close of 45.67.

The FII on Friday were the net buyers in both equity as well as debt segments. In equity segment the gross buying was of Rs 2644.80 crore against gross sell of Rs 2342.70 crore, while in the debt segment the gross purchase was of Rs 1778.70 crore with no sales reported at all.

The US markets managed a close of marginal gains on Friday as the much awaited jobs data came below expectation it was revision in previous data that gave some encouragement and led the indices close in green. The Asian markets have made a good start and some of the indices are trading up by more than 1%. The domestic markets have been consolidating for last couple of days and with the start of earning season may get some recovery as the IT pack is first to announce their result which is expected to be in line. Today the markets are likely to make a positive start though the trade is likely to remain cautious in the absence of any major triggers.

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

                                                          Nifty Top volumes

• Unitech Wireless, a subsidiary of Unitech, has received an aggregate amount of Rs 1,493 crore from Telenor Asia Pte for acquisition of further 11.1% stake in the company.
• DLF is going to set up an Industrial Park over 1200 acre in Mohali district, Punjab at a cost of Rs. 2700 crore under Super Mega Mixed Use Industrial Park Policy.
• Aircel has announced that they are partnering with Infosys to launch mobile application store.
• Harley Davidson India has signed a MoU with ICICI Bank for financing its broad spectrum of services, including launches and operations in India.
• Tata Motors is making initial preparations to launch Nano in the African continent.

The domestic sales of the company in December 2009 surged 373.71% to...