"The market was weak during the day and the Sensex was range-bound between 4640.52 and 4573.21 points - an intra-day fluctuation of just 67 points."

"However, Wednesday being the first day of trading on the current settlement on NSE, we are expecting some fireworks in the morning," said Rajiv Sampat at Parag Parikh Investment Advisory Services.

On Tuesday, buying interest was witnessed in select pivotal counters like IPCL and Satyam Computers and refinery stocks like HPCL and BPCL witnessed heavy selling pressure. And as the index heavyweight HLL was able to hold on to its position, it prevented the indices from going down further.

For Wednesday, in the absence of any fresh buying by theoperators and the institutions, players expect the market to remain weak. "We expect the Sensex to go down by another 60-70 points and take support at the 4537 level (a strong support level). This would provide a good entry point into the cyclical stocks. Otherwise, we can see the Sensex go down till 4450 points before any fresh buying occurs," says Chiragh Sanghvi at Asit C Mehta Investment Intermediaries.

"Given the Rs 18.8 crore FII fund outflow on Monday and the range-bound market conditions of Tuesday, the market is expected to remain weak in the latter part of Wednesday. There could be some buying during the opening hours. Also, given the fact that there was a shift of position worth Rs 127 crore from BSE to NSE on Monday and Rs 110 crore increase in the long position on BSE on Tuesday, on Wednesday we are expecting a correction of around 80 points," says Nikunj Modi at Kisan Ratilal Choksey Shares and Securities.

According to one market player, the steady trend observed in the HLL counter was onaccount of some short positions on NSE.

On Wednesday, the counter is likely to show some weakness on account of profit booking and might go down by another Rs 100. This will also put some downward pressure on the indices.

Ashok Leyland, Escorts and Apollo Hospital were close to their upper circuits, which brokers believe were due to informed buying. Among the side counters, Birla 3M and Alfa Laval were on the upper end of the circuit.

LIC was reported to have sold in the counters like SBI, MTNL and Colgate while UTI sold in the counters like Castrol and the refinery stocks including HPCL and BPCL.