Markets have a subdued opening; Nifty hovers at 8,250

At 9:20 am, the Sensex is at 27,294, down 102 points or 0.34% and the Nifty is at 8253, down 33 points.

The markets have started the day's proceedings on a negative note post the gains seen in the previous session.

At 9:20 am, the Sensex was at 27,294, down 102 points or 0.34% and the Nifty was at 8253, down 33 points.

The markets had surged in late trades on Tuesday, with private banking major ICICI Bank and auto heavyweight Maruti Suzuki leading the gains. Markets are likely to remain volatile ahead of the April derivative contracts tomorrow. One should avoid forming fresh short position in Nifty as we are expecting some bounce, analysts say.

"FIIs have been actively buying Stock Futures in last trading sessions. Roll-over in Nifty and BankNifty is on the higher side at 36.59% & 39.38% respectively but in terms of open interest is low. The total openn interest (OI) of the market is Rs 2,54,197 crore and the stock futures OI is Rs 70,495 crore," said a morning note from Angel Broking.

As regards key levels, analysts at Anand Rathi suggest that the Nifty now needs to hold above 8,280 zones to witness a bounce back move towards 8,380 - 8,420 levels. However, if it fails to hold its 8,250 levels then further profit booking may drag the index towards 8,180 - 8,150 levels. Bank Nifty, on the other hand, needs to stay above 18,150 to witness up move towards 18,500 - 18,800 levels. Else, weakness may again drag it to 18,000 levels.

RUPEE

The Indian rupee opened marginally lower at 63.22 per dollar on Wednesday agains 63.15 Tuesday. The dollar dropped to an eight-week low after a weak US consumer confidence report, with investors cautious about a Federal Reserve meeting.

GLOBAL MARKETS

Major US share indices ended mixed with the Nasdaq ending flat with negative bias after Apple shares lost ground and ended 1.6% lower. Meanwhile, the Dow Jones industrial average and the broader S&P 500 ended higher led by gains in global pharma major Merck and IT major IBM. The Dow Jones gained 72 points to end at 18,110.14, the S&P 500 ended up 6 points at 2,114.76 and the Nasdaq eased 5 points to close at 5,055.42.

In Europe, equities closed lower as investors took a breather from a stellar rally in the previous session and looked ahead to meeting by the US Federal reserve policymakers.

Asian stock markets were trading with marginal losses on profit booking after recent gains which pushed benchmark indices to multi-year highs. Further, investors were also cautious ahead of the US Federal Reserve two-day policy meet which ends later today. Japanese markets were closed today. The Shanghai Composite was down 1% while Hang Seng eased 0.4% and Straits Times slipped 0.3%.