Benchmark equity indices snapped the four-day winning streak on Wednesday as investors resorted to profit booking ahead of Thursday's futures and options (F&O) expiry session and extended weekend. After opening marginally in the green, markets turned choppy in early trades and continued to reel under pressure during the entire session except for the very brief period in late afternoon trades, when they managed to enter the green for a while. But the recovery remained short-lived on the back of sustained selling at every high. Positive comments from the Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee failed to lift market sentiment in trade. He has said that it would not be immediately possible to exit stimulus despite fiscal concerns. Though the activity remained muted for front liners; the second line stocks had good outing and managed to notch up respectable gains in the volatile day of trade. Consumer durables, realty and information technology stocks witnessed selective buying in the session while fast moving consumer goods, metal and capital goods stocks struggled in trade. Finally, the BSE Sensex contracted 57.74 points or 0.33% to settle at 17,343.82, while the S&P CNX Nifty shed 18.5 points or 0.36% to end at 5169.45.

The US markets just managed the close in green on Wednesday, though the mood of the markets was subdued due to the decline in the global markets and the rising dollar coupled with light volume but some positive key economic indicator lifted the sentiments of the markets. The Chicago Purchasing Managers Index rose to 60 in December from 56.1 in November. The report found that production and new orders increased and employment improved. The Dow Jones industrial average was up by 3.10 points, or 0.03%, to 10,548.51, its highest close since Oct. 1, 2008. The S&P 500 index ended up by  0.22 points, or less than 0.02%, to 1,126.42, while the Nasdaq composite index gained  2.88%, or 0.13%, to 2,291.28.

Crude prices edged higher on Wednesday as the government reported a decline in supply for the fourth week in a row. A weekly report from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) on Wednesday showed that the crude oil stocks fell 1.5 million barrels in the week to December 25. The EIA said distillate stocks fell 2.0 million barrels and gasoline stockpiles fell 300,000 barrels. Benchmark crude for February delivery added 41 cents to settle at $79.28 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. In London, Brent crude for February delivery rose 39 cents to settle at $78.03 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.

The Indian rupee closed weaker on Wednesday, the domestic currency made a weak start as the dollar has strengthened overseas against Yen and Euro, it hit a two-month high against the yen on Wednesday, apart from this the month end dollar demand from the oil importers and refiners was weighing down the sentiments. Finally the rupee closed at 46.74/75, 7 paise lower compared to its Tuesday's close of 46.67.

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 1776.10 crore against gross sell of Rs 1391.70 crore, while in the debt segment the gross purchase was of Rs 709.20 crore with gross sales of Rs 574.80 crore.

The US markets managed a positive close on Wednesday amid a very low volume trading; the investors were under the impression of sober global cues. Most of the Asian markets are trading with good gains today. The domestic markets declined after four days of continuous gains in previous session but are likely to make a good start of the last trading day of the year and decade on supportive global cues. The strength in dollar is again likely to keep the momentum high for the export oriented stocks.

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

  Nifty Top volumes

• Tata Steel has invested Rs 5 crore on developing the Dharani Dhar sports complex at Sankarpur in Keonjhar district of Orissa.
• It has been reported that Tata Motors has begun trial production of the first batch of the Nano at its mother plant at the Sanand facility.
• NTPC has got the approval for setting up 301 megawatts of solar power generation capacity by March 2014.
• NPPA has imposed claims of Rs 1,500 crore on Cipla as overcharging penalty.
• Idea Cellular, has bagged the Title sponsorship for the ODI Cricket tri-series & the Test match series, to be played in Bangladesh.

HCL Infosystems, the leading Indian ICT system integrator and distribution company, in partnership with Motorola, has bagged Rs 100 crore worth of contract from the Delhi government to establish the country's first exclusive government ra...