Markets continued their upward move for the large part of the day following the Friday's closing. Profit booking however was visible on both the indices. We expect the volatility on the markets to pick up as we enter the F&O expiry on Thursday 26th Dec.

The markets managed to move beyond 21,200 on the Sensex & 6300 on the Nifty by 2.30 pm but were unable to sustain themselves at those levels. Baring IT, all other sectoral indices were trading in the green with Cap Goods & Metals taking the lead. For tomorrow we anticipate a flat move on the markets & one that could see weakness seeping in by the time we close the trade for tomorrow as we have a holiday of account of X'mas on the 25th Dec & F&O expiry the day after. At the close, the markets were up with Sensex at 21,100.03 up 21 points & Nifty at 6,284.50, up by 10.25 points.

Strength of the INR was impressive at 61.86 against the USD at 3.30 pm. In our view, the INR should gain more strength in the days to come and rise to 61.50/61.35 before the month end USD demand by the OMCs.

With upside capped on the index we would advice booking profits at higher levels for the short to medium term. The next trigger for the markets would be in form of quarterly earnings which will unfold from second week of Jan 2014.

Stock Market Research Report by Market Analysts at Geojit BNP Paribas Financial Services