Technical Analyst, Deepak Mohoni :

The main indices declined on Tuesday, with the Sensex down 108.04 points (0.64%) at 16,752.86 and the Nifty 54.85 points (1.09%) at 4,957.80, while the CNX Midcap rose 1.25 points (0.02%) at 6,738.90. The largest negative contributions to the Sensex came from Reliance (56.6 points), ONGC (19.9), Infosys (18.0), Bharti Airtel (16.6), HDFC (14.3), Larsen & Toubro (7.8), TCS (7.8) and Wipro (5.8). The biggest positive contributions were from ICICI Bank (15.5 points), Jaiprakash Assoc (7.1), Tata Steel (6.4), ITC (6.4), Hindalco (6.2), Satyam Computers (6.0) and Reliance Energy (5.8).

The market's breadth was neutral, with advances outnumbering declines 1.07 times on the BSE, and 1.03 times on the NSE. The volume in advancing issues was 56.0% (64.5%) on the BSE, and 41.2% (57.2%) on the NSE, while that in declining ones was 42.5% (34.8%) on the BSE, and 58.2% (42.0%) on the NSE.

The number of heavily traded stocks at 200-day highs fell from one to zero, while the number at 200-day lows remained five. The number at 5-day highs went up from 12 to 15, while the number of at 5-day lows dropped from 125 to 106. The 240 stocks averaged a loss of 0.35%.

The Nifty opened higher and climbed slowly to its session high at 1250. It then declined for the rest of the session, closing in the red at its low. The CNX Midcap followed a similar course, but finished unchanged.

The Sensex, Nifty and CNX Midcap all breached their intermediate downtrend triggers this week, and then bounced back almost immediately. This makes the market’s intermediate trend somewhat ambiguous. A fall below this week’s lows would indicate the presence of an intermediate downtrend. These lows are at 16,547 for the Sensex, 4,913 for the Nifty and 6,597 for the CNX Midcap.

Global markets are in a similar situation, and are currently hovering  near their intermediate downtrend trigger levels.

The Dow had risen to its highest level for the year during the uptrend, and there is a possibility that a global bull market is on. Several stocks entered major uptrends recently in our market too.

The issue of whether a bull market is developing here as well as globally should be settled once an intermediate downtrend develops.  A short and small decline 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, which means that a global bull market has yet to be confirmed.

The major trend of BPCL has turned down yesterday.

The FIIs sold USD 31.1 million of stocks on Monday, and the MFs dumped USD 16.2 million. The FIIs are averaging daily sales of USD 64.6 million over the last five sessions, and the MFs are selling at a rate of USD 26.4 million.

Most global indices have managed to remain in intermediate uptrends. Major trends are down.

The Dow fell 44.13 points (0.34%) to 12,832.18, and the NASDAQ composite went up 6.63 points (0.27%) to 2,495.12.

Infosys fell 1.28% to USD 43.02, Satyam 1.02% to USD 26.15 and Wipro 0.99% to USD 13.04. Tata Motors lost 0.50% at USD 15.99, ICICI Bank went up 0.54% to USD 42.45, HDFC Bank dropped 1.07% to USD 106.56, Dr Reddy lost 0.93% at USD 14.84, MTNL fell 2.81% to USD 4.85, Patni dropped by 1.47% to USD 12.71, Rediff.com was unchanged at USD 8.63 and Satyam Infoway fell 1.42% to USD 4.86.