It was almost a flat closing for the market today. The Sensex closed at 19003, up 64 points while Nifty closed at 5634, up 17 points from the previous close. The BSE Midcaps closed in the negative while the BSE Smallcaps Index was up by just 0.1%. The BSE Bankex was up over 2%, BSE Consumer Durables Index up 1.7%, BSE Oil & Gas Index up 1.1% and BSE Realty Index up 1.5%. The Sensex gainers included RPL, Reliance Industries, HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank while losers included Reliance Communications, Tata Steel, ONGC and Hindalco.

The market is in a consolidation stage and likely to trade in a range of 18,000-20,000 in December, Milind Pradhan of UTI Securities, on CNBC TV18. The Q3 results in the second week of January may be the next trigger for the market after which we may see 20,000.