Nifty closes below 4850; all BSE sectoral indices in red

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The Nifty witnessed huge selling pressure in the last couple of hours and closed the session below the 4850 level on the back of downtrend across all the sectors. The markets had opened strong following positive global cues post Obama's USD 3.8 trillion package for Job sector. However, the benchmark indices erased those early gains after initial one-hour of trade as Asian markets also turned mixed in trade.

All the BSE sectoral indices ended in the red; the Realty and Bank indices slipped the most, down 2.5% and 2%, respectively. Metal, Auto, Power, Capital Goods and Oil & Gas indices fell 1.5-1.7%.

The 30-share BSE Sensex slipped 362.54 points from the day's high of 16525.98 and the 50-share NSE Nifty lost 121.05 points from the day's high of 4951.15. The former index closed at 16,163.44, down 192.59 points or 1.18% and the later lost 69.60 points or 1.42%, to settle at 4.830.10.

The market, Daryl Guppy of guppytraders.com, says is likely to move sideways for the next few weeks with the possibility of testing key support levels. He sees strong support for the National Stock Exchange's 50-share index Nifty at 4,600 and resistance at 5,150. "I expect to see some more weakness at the Nifty."

Index	Closing Value	Chg (%)
REALTY	3,439.47	-2.45
BANKEX	9,461.11	-1.99
PSU	9,375.14	-1.71
METAL	15,962.04	-1.57
OIL&GAS	9,857.20	-1.57
CAP GOODs	12,978.53	-1.46
AUTO	6,968.34	-1.45
POWER	3,027.21	-1.44
MIDCAP	6,548.42	-1.19
IT	4,938.37	-0.77
SMALLCAP	8,391.91	-0.77
PHARMA	4,850.26	-0.74
FMCG	2,694.93	-0.46

Heavyweights in the banking space like SBI and ICICI Bank lost 2% each. Axis Bank and PNB fell 2.3% each, and HDFC Bank declined 1.3%. However, HDFC gained 1.4%, which is not a part of Bankex.

Unitech plunged 4.5% and DLF went down 1.8% in the realty segment.

State-run and India's largest power generation company, NTPC, fell 2.5%. The government fixed floor price at Rs 201 for the company's FPO, which will open on February 3. Today's closing price was Rs 206.

Among the other power stocks, Reliance Power, Reliance Infrastructure and Tata Power fell 0.7-1.7%. Suzlon Energy slipped 3% while Power Grid gained 0.66%.

Oil & gas also added some pressure on the indices; heavyweight Reliance Industries was down 1.7% and Cairn India was down 2.2%. GAIL and BPCL fell over 3%. However, ONGC gained just 0.3%.