Benchmark equity indices extended their losing streak for the fourth successive day on Friday amid weak global cues. The markets made a gap down opening in line with their Asian peers.Comments from the Chief Statistician of India, Pronab Sen that the growth rate for the third quarter is expected to be significantly lower than second quarter, added apprehensions among investors. On the same time Bharti Airtel disappointed the street with poor quarterly earnings in early trades. The key indices recouped most of their early losses in late morning trades led by stellar set of numbers from the big boy - Reliance Industries. Meanwhile, the bears were in no mood to loosen their grip on the markets despite the strength shown by few heavyweights in the latter part of the day. The NSE's Nifty managed to shut shop above the crucial 5000-mark. Realty, information technology and banking stocks were biggest losers in trade. On the other hand, shares representing fast moving consumer goods space were in demand during the entire session. FMCG major, ITC reported better-than-expected result for the December quarter. Its net profit for the latest quarter has gone up by 26.68% while the street was expecting about 20% jump in net profit. Public sector undertaking stocks also bucked the negative trend in the second half of the day. Volumes remained high for the day, in fact the highest ever in the markets' history. Finally, the BSE Sensex closed lower by 191.46 points or 1.12% to end at 16,859.68, while the S&P CNX Nifty corrected 58.15 points or 1.14% to close at 5036.

US markets declined for the third consecutive day on Friday, investors seems to have completely  rejected President Barack Obama's plans to restrict big banks and earnings reports that just weren't good enough. On the same time the tech giant Google came with disappointing results that took its toll on the whole technology lot. The markets sentiments were so weak that they overlooked upbeat earnings from General Electric Co. and McDonald's Corp. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 216.90 points, or 2.09%, to 10,172.98. The Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 24.72 points, or 2.21%, to 1,091.76 while the Nasdaq composite index closed lower by 60.41 points, or 2.67% to 2,205.29.

Crude prices plunged further on Friday and closed to their four week low. The sharp drop in the share markets coupled with the fear of slow energy demand in US and China led to the decline in the crude prices. Benchmark crude for March delivery settled down $1.54, or 2.02 percent, at $74.54 a barrel, down for a third straight day and marking the lowest close since December 22's $74.40 on the New York Mercantile Exchange. In London March Brent crude ended down $1.75, or 2.35 percent, at $72.83 a barrel.

The Indian rupee continued its declining trend on Friday as the stock markets plunged once again and on the same time dollar strengthened further. The rupee followed the trend of local stock markets sharp drop for the second consecutive day and closed lower. It was some dollar selling by exporters that prevented a sharper decline in the domestic currency. Now markets are awaiting the central bank's policy review on January 29 for cues on interest rate moves. Finally the rupee closed at 46.15, 11 paise weaker compared to its Thursday's close of 46.04.

The FII on Friday were the net sellers in the equity segment with gross buying of Rs 2698.60 crore against gross sell of Rs 3268.10 crore, while in the debt segment they were the net buyers with a gross purchase of Rs 1138.00 crore against gross sales of Rs 191.40 crore.

The US markets plunged further on Friday and they seem to reject the new banking law of president Obama, all the major indices lost more than 2%. The Asian markets have continued their weakness and most of the indices are trading lower by about 1%. The domestic markets finished the week with a fourth consecutive day of decline and despite the highest ever volume the indices lost considerably. Today the global cues are again negative and the mood of the investors is likely to remain cautious in the holiday shortened week with F&O expiry scheduled.

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

                                                          Nifty Top volumes

• Idea Cellular's consolidated net profit dropped 22.5% to Rs 170 crore during the quarter ended December 31, 2009.
• ITC has reported a 26.7% rise in its Q3 net profit of Rs 1,144.17 crore as against Rs 903.21 crore in the same quarter of previous year.
• UK-based Vedanta Resources Plc and Larsen and Toubro plan to set-up a mega joint venture steel projects in Orissa.
• GAIL (India) has completed the route survey for the 1400 km Dabhol-Bengaluru gas pipeline project for supplying natural gas to Karnataka.
• Reliance Industries net profit for the December 2009 quarter stood at Rs 4,008 crore, up 15.77% over Rs 3,462 crore in the same quarter last year.

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