Technical Analyst, Deepak Mohoni :

The market rallied on Thursday, with the Sensex up 375.19 points (2.21%) at 17,353.54, the Nifty 103.50 points (2.07%) at 5,115.25, and the CNX Midcap 97.75 points (1.44%) at 6,896.10. The biggest positive contributions to the Sensex came from Reliance (98.3 points), ICICI Bank (52.6), Larsen & Toubro (50.7), Infosys (46.1), Reliance Comm (31.3), HDFC (21.9), Hindalco (14.7), BHEL (13.2), State Bank (8.1), DLF (7.8), Bharti Airtel (7.6), ONGC (7.2), Reliance Energy (6.3), Jaiprakash Assoc (6.0), TCS (5.5) and Maruti Suzuki (5.4). The largest negative contributions to the Sensex came from Satyam Computers (16.0 points) and Hind Unilever (7.2).

The market's breadth was healthy, with advances outnumbering declines 2.01 times on the BSE, and 2.49 times on the NSE. The volume in advancing issues was 59.0% (87.7%) on the BSE, and 84.8% (85.5%) on the NSE, while that in declining ones was 36.7% (11.4%) on the BSE, and 14.6% (14.1%) on the NSE.

The number of heavily traded stocks at 200-day highs remained unchanged at 2, while the number at 200-day lows dropped from 3 to 0. The number at 5-day highs went up from 55 to 130, while the number of at 5-day lows dropped from 39 to 8. The 240 stocks averaged a gain of 1.71%.

The Nifty opened higher and hit its session low in the first few minutes. It continued to improve most of the day, and closed near its best. The CNX Midcap followed a roughly similar course, but with its low at 1255.

The indices climbed back into intermediate uptrends  yesterday. This confirms that the recent downtrend signal can be discarded, as the decline was too small and short-lived to be treated as a full blown intermediate downtrend.

The re-established intermediate uptrend would end if the Sensex breaches 16,626. The equivalent triggers are 4,932 for the Nifty, and 6,705 for the CNX Midcap index.

Global markets are in a similar situation. They too are back in clear intermediate uptrends, after coming close to falling into intermediate downtrends. The picture is therefore of an intermediate uptrend that was threatened, but survived here and globally.

There is a strong possibility now that we are in a global bull market, as the uptrend has been persistent.

The next intermediate downtrend should settle the issue of whether a global bull market is starting.  A short and small intermediate-term correction would suggest that a bull market is on.

For the moment though, our market and most global markets are still in major (long-term) downtrends.

There was no change in the major trend of any of the Hotline stocks yesterday.

The FIIs bought USD 64.0 million of stocks on Wednesday, and the MFs acquired USD 33.0 million. The FIIs are averaging daily sales of USD 22.5 million over the last five sessions, and the MFs are selling at a rate of USD 32.4 million.

Most global indices have managed to remain in intermediate uptrends, despite the recent declines. Most major trends are still down.

The Dow rose 94.28 points (0.73%) to 12,992.66, and the NASDAQ composite went up 37.03 points (1.48%) to 2,533.73.

Infosys was up 5.08% at USD 46.58, Satyam rose 1.58% to USD 26.36, Wipro gained 1.64% at USD 13.60, Tata Motors lost 0.25% at USD 16.00, ICICI Bank went up 3.33% to USD 44.72, HDFC Bank rose 3.54% to USD 109.82, Dr Reddy's Labs lost 1.42% at USD 15.23, MTNL rose 1.33% to USD 5.04, Patni went up 2.61% to USD 13.77, Rediff.com gained 0.12% at USD 8.58 and Satyam Infoway went up 0.21% to USD 4.88.