The indices are likely to move within a broad range this week. Global cues

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such as the problems in the Euro zone and news regarding Goldman Sachs will be watched keenly.

On the domestic front, the Supreme Court verdict on the gas dispute between Reliance Industries and RNRL is likely to come out this week. If the verdict goes against RIL, it may impact the market for a few sessions. On the other hand, a positive forecast on the monsoon front may help the market gain momentum.

“On the global front, news regarding US Federal Reserve’s move to slap Goldman Sachs with a criminal fraud case may hurt sentiments. Fears over the Greece issue may also dampen inflows from foreign institutional investors. At home, if the court verdict goes against Reliance Industries, the market may come under some pressure,” said Ambareesh Baliga, vice-president of Karvy Broking.

Shares of Goldman Sachs plunged 9.38 per cent on the US bourses on Friday. Standard & Poor’s downgraded the scrip to ‘sell’ on the same day.

Baliga is bullish on the mid-cap space. Even though some mid-cap IT companies have come out with dismal results, Baliga feels money flow on the counter will continue to be robust. The BSE mid-cap index jumped 0.74 per cent last week against a 0.77 per cent drop in the BSE Sensex.

As for sector-specific bets, Ambit Capital is positive on consumer durables and FMCG sectors. It has advised investors to avoid buying in IT and healthcare sectors. In a technical report, the brokerage said consumer durables and FMCG stocks such as Titan, Videocon, ITC and HUL are likely to gain over the next one month while IT stocks and those in the pharma basket — such as Infosys, TCS, Cipla and Divi’s Lab — may see some downside as they have reached the overbought territory.

Pankaj Pandey, head of research at ICICI Direct, said, “For May, we believe Nifty will have support at 5,160 while resistance exists at 5,350. As the market will remain highly volatile on global cues and monsoon forecasts, we advise investors to look at large-caps in order to avoid any steep erosion in their wealth. At the same time, they should book profit in mid-cap and small-cap segments.”

According to Baliga, Nifty has support at 5,150 while it faces resistance at 5,350.

Meanwhile, the rate of inflation eased to 16.61 per cent for the weekended on April 17 compared with 17.65 per cent in the previous week.

The BSE Sensex lost 135.49 points, or 0.77 per cent, last week to end at 17,558.71. The 50-stock Nifty fell 26.10 points, or 0.49 per cent, to 5,278.

“For May, we will adopt a ‘buy on dips’ approach. Buy, because liquidity may remain strong as in spite of the problems in the PIGS basket in the European region and strong selling in other Asian markets, FIIs are hardly selling meaningfully in our market. We expect some dips as open interest in the market is slightly on the higher side and there may be small corrections due to long unwinding in certain sectors,” brokerage Angel Broking said in its report on the rollovers.

Put-call ratios ICICI Bank, Maruti, Tata Tea and Hero Honda in terms of open interest for the near-month expiry stood at 1.81, 1.51, 1.50 and 1.31, respectively, reflecting bearish sentiments on these counters.