Markets open in negative territory at 14,344.70

Mumbai, May 24: The Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) Sensex today opened weak at 14,344.70 from it's previous close of 14,363.26, and soon slipped further down to 14,325.25 registering a loss of 38.01 points in early trade, as profit booking emerged at higher levels on negative global cues.

The broader 50-stock National Stock Exchange (NSE) Nifty Index also tanked by 22.15 points at 4,224.05 from it's previous close of 4,246.20. It had earlier opened flat at 4,246.20.

The total turnover on the premier BSE amounted to Rs 660 crore.

The market breadth here was positive as 878 shares advanced and 734 declined. Among the Sensex pack, 19 declined while the rest advanced, market analysts observed.

The prominent losers included Tata Steel, Hero Honda, Reliance Energy, ACC and Reliance Industries (RIL).

The major gainers included NTPC, Satyam Computers, Tata Motors and NIIT Technologies.

Analysts pointed out that technically, the Sensex has strong support at 14,000 level and on the upside faces a stiff resistance at 14,600 level. Similarly, the Nifty has support of 4,180 on the downside, while on the upside there is a near term resistance at 4,300.

Among Asian markets, the Nikkei slipped 0.11 per cent by the close of morning trade today finishing the morning session with a loss of 18.77 points at 17,686.35. The broad TOPIX index lost 0.14 per cent to 1,737.59 .

US indices slipped yesterday, giving back earlier gains as investors showed some caution after the Dow industrials and S&P 500 index briefly touched record territory. While the Dow Jones shed 14 points at 13,526, the Nasdaq Composite was down 11 points to close at 2,577.

Among Indian ADRs, except VSNL all had a weak outing on US bourses. Patni Computer tumbled over 4 per cent while Infosys, MTNL, Rediff, Satyam, Dr Reddy's, Tata Motors, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and Wipro dropped around 1-2 per cent each.

Crude oil prices gained further, with the Nymex light crude oil added 26 cents at USD 65.77 per barrel.

In the metals segment, the Comex gold for June series gained USD 2.70 to settle at USD 662.60 an ounce.

UNI