Nifty closes below 4850; all BSE sectoral indices in red

The Nifty witnessed huge selling pressure in the last couple of hours and closed session below the 4850 level, on the back of downtrend across all sectors. In the early trade, it was looking like bullish trend following positive global cues post US President Barack Obama's proposed USD 3 trillion package for job sector. But the benchmark indices erased those gains post initial one-hour of trade, as Asian markets also turned mixed in trade.

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

Amit Khurana, Head-Research, Mangal Keshav Securities sees sharp sell-off if the Nifty breaks 4750 level. "We are still saying whether it is a 4,750 or 4,800, give it 50-100 points here or there on the Nifty, we still believe people will spend sometime in that range of 4800-5200. Having a few more trading days like this, where we will go up 100 points and give up all the gains, I think that is the way we are seeing it for the next few weeks. But if we do give way below 4,750 or whatever those technical levels are, then there could be sharp sell-off happening in the market place."

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.''

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.