Key benchmark equity indices settled in a flat territory on Tuesday as investors opted to book profit towards the end of the session. Markets started the day on a positive note to cover up with other Asian indices during the extended weekend. The buoyant mood among marketmen helped the NSE's Nifty to touch new high for 2009 of 5214 while the BSE's Sensex fell short of touching fresh 52-week high by just 7 points. Meanwhile, the overall activity on the Dalal Street remained on the slower side during the entire session as investors remained on the sidelines ahead of the futures and options (F&O) expiry for December series later this week. Consumer durables, metal and power stocks were the biggest gainers in trade while healthcare, information technology and realty stocks proved to be the laggards of day. Reliance Power, up almost five percent, was the star of the session. The company has commissioned the first 300 megawatt (MW) unit of its Rosa power plant, Uttar Pradesh (UP) on Monday. The broader indices outperformed their larger counterparts in trade. Finally, the BSE Sensex advanced 40.95 points or 0.24% to end at 17,401.56, while the S&P CNX Nifty rose 9.55 points or 0.18% to close at 5187.95.

The US markets closed in negative terrain after six days of continuous rally. The major indices advanced in the day as the Conference Board said its index of consumer confidence rose to 52.9 in December from 49.5 in November. That was slightly better than economists had forecast. But later as the dollar strengthened the markets slipped with commodities and energy stocks being hurt the most. The dollar reversed an early slide and moved higher against other currencies. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 1.67 points, or 0.02%, to 10,545.41. The Standard & Poor's 500 index declined by 1.58 points, or 0.14%, to 1,126.20, while the Nasdaq composite index fell by 2.68 points, or 0.12%, to 2,288.40.

Crude prices ended marginally higher on Tuesday, even strength in dollar was unable to prevent the gains in crude. Crude was supported by cold weather that lifted heating oil futures and by expectations that oil inventory reports would show that crude and distillate inventories fell last week. Benchmark crude for February delivery added a dime to settle at $78.87 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, still the highest close since mid-November. In London, Brent crude for February delivery increased 32 cents to settle at $77.64 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.

The Indian rupee closed flat on Tuesday, the domestic currency traded range bound as the local stock markets, despite remaining firm throughout the day were unable to give any specific direction also the month end dollar demand too prevented any upside movement in the rupee. In overseas trading, dollar rose against the yen and euro on Monday. Finally the rupee closed at 46.67, almost at the same point to its Thursday's close of 46.66/67.

The FII on Tuesday were the net buyers in the equity segment with gross buying of Rs 1594.70 crore against gross sell of Rs 783.40 crore, while in the debt segment they were the net sellers with a gross purchase of Rs 1420.80 crore against gross sales of Rs 2207.10 crore.

The US markets broke their six days winning streak on Tuesday and closed marginally in red , though there were some good news from the economy front but the strength in dollar took its toll and all the major indices closed in red, in a thin trading ahead of the long weekend. The Asian markets have made a weak start and barring few, all the indices are trading soft in the early hours. The domestic markets closed almost flat after trading range bound in previous session, the holiday mood was prevailing in the markets and the volume remained low. Today the markets are likely to make a flat to soft start and the strength in dollar might see some recovery in the IT and export oriented stocks.

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

                                                          Nifty Top volumes

• Hansen Transmissions sees opportunities in the Chinese market after Suzlon Energy sold its controlling stake.
• Finance ministry and RBI have objected to the Unitech's plan to raise $700 million through FCCBs.
• RPower has commissioned one of the four 300MW-capacity units of a Rosa thermal power plant.
• Tata Steel has hiked prices by up to Rs 2,000 per tonne with immediate effect on the back of rising demand.
• Reliance Industries has successfully completed an assessment of the design capacity of the KG D6 deepwater gas production facilities.