Nifty closes rangebound session on flat note

Equity benchmarks closed session on a flat note, after witnessing a rangebound trade between 5410-5440 and despite European and US futures' cues. It has been in a range of 5400-5500 for the fourth consecutive week; which moved further from earlier range of 5350-5450.

Rahul Mohindar of Viratechindia feels that the markets are probably heading close to some kind of a breakout, which might happen over the next week. He says, 5370 is a very important level as a support. "We still seem to be in safe trajectory. There is no break down as such happening there. At the same time on the upside there is a resistance at 5560 area."

The sell-off in technology, realty, power and metal companies' shares along with heavyweights like Reliance Industries, ONGC, Bharti Airtel, L&T, HUL and M&M weighed on the markets in late trade.

However, buying in HDFC Bank, Cairn India, HDFC, ITC, Hindalco, Reliance Communications, Ranbaxy Labs, Tata Motors, BHEL, Hero Honda, ICICI Bank along with cement companies' shares limited losses.

The 30-share BSE Sensex closed at 18,048.85, down 1.93 points and the 50-share NSE slipped 4.15 points to 5,414.15. However, on the global front, European markets like France's CAC, Britain's FTSE and Germany's DAX were trading 1-1.5% higher, at the time of closing of Indian equities. US index futures like Dow Jones and Nasdaq went up 0.6% each.

In the technology pack, TCS, Infosys, Wipro and HCL Tech declined 0.4-1.2%. Bharti Airtel and Idea Cellular from telecom space were down 0.8-1.5% while Reliance Communication fell 1.44%.