It was a quieter session for the market as it consolidated today after three days of running up. The Nifty was just down about 20 points to close below 4,900. Reliance and RNRL both denied rumours of any kind of settlement talks between the two groups. Stocks of both camps drifted down from the highs. Bharti plunged once again to close below Rs 300, and DLF led the slide in real estate stocks.

It was an interesting session of trade because on a couple of occasions the market tried to move up and then faltered around 4,900. The start was around 4,950 but it did not stick around there and it finally closed below 4,900. There was some effort on the way up in stocks like Tata Motors which shone in the auto pack, SBI and ICICI Bank didn’t do too badly, Cairn had a good session and Ambuja too was not too weak, but it was weighed down by stocks like Bharti down 4% again, HUL was quite weak, DLF and Unitech both were down quite sharply and while Tata Motors did well, Hero Honda and Maruti actually sold off quite a bit. It didn’t help that ONGC was down today and Reliance after a very promising start in the morning actually drifted down considerably after the denial came in about the settlement talks. 

It was an okay session actually. I don’t think that people will go away with the feeling that the trend is broken or the upmove of the last three days has come to an end. However, the fact that we have run into a little bit of resistance in this zone of 4,900 to 5,000 might lead to a few question marks to the bulls but global markets clearly will hold the key for the next 2-3 sessions. If they hold out maybe this is just a phase of consolidation or profit taking in largecaps and midcaps because keep in mind, the Nifty from its recent low of 4,550 had run up some 400 points to today’s high of 4,950. And from there a little bit of correction or profit taking is perfectly along expected lines. 

Will it deepen from here and is it the top end of the trading range for the moment? I think the answer to that will lie in global markets and how they move over the rest of the week.