Mkts recover in late trade to close off day's lows

Excerpts from Markets Today on CNBC-TV18 Watch the full show » ALSO READ See what other CNBC-TV18 anchors have to say Nifty BSE | NSE 25/05/12 Are Mutual Funds betting on Nifty?

It's a disappointing Monday on Dalal Street with indices languishing in negative terrain right from the word go. The markets did stage a late recovery which helped markets end off lows. The Nifty closed 30 points lower, failing to hold on to 4,000 at 3,974, while the Sensex lost 104 points and closed at 13,400.

Consumer durables, metals, and realty stocks led the fall, while tech stocks outperformed. Turnover was dismal at around Rs 67,000 crore while the breadth too disappointed at 1:5.

Also see: Mkts end lower; metals dip, broader indices underperform

Here is a verbatim transcript of Udayan Mukherjee's comments on CNBC-TV18. Also see the accompanying video.

It was a quiet start to the trading week, volumes remain extremely low, and the Nifty ground down about 30 points to close below 4000.

Infrastructure and metals stocks are the weakest in the largecap universe. Very few stocks closed in the green. Infosys on day two after earnings is one of them and Sun Pharma driven by news is the other.

The monsoon scare still hovers over the stock market. Auto stocks bore the brunt of that selling pressure.

We got away with the smallish sneak for the frontliners, but the move still looked very disheartening.

It is a gently grind down for the start of the week, but you must see it in the perspective of what happened last week. I think prices came off quite significantly. This looks like consolidation, but even the consolidation after the fall of last week is happening with a slight negative bias which is not a great sign. So, you do not know whether this consolidation means that the market has spent itself on the way down with last weeks fall or like a descending staircase it has fallen, it has gone to a landing and there is another leg down which is coming after that. That is a million dollar question on whether we will get away with 3800-3900 or there is some bigger fall waiting.

The instructive thing today other than the price fall is clearly the volumes. We did not even make it to Rs 70,000 crore. I do not know what to read into it and whether the downward momentum is exhausting itself a little bit. If you had momentum on the way down, then volumes would have been higher because last week the fall was quite substantial or that the bulls and bears both lack conviction at the current levels of sub 4000. Bears do not want to press the short pedal, bulls are not quite sure the correction is done, and therefore this no man's land is leading low volumes and participation. But I think keep watching the volumes for a sense of direction during the course of the week.