The Hindu Business Line : Bear domination

THE sentiment reading of the tradable counters remains bullish. Bear domination on Friday is likely to turn the sentiment reading into bearish. Otherwise, the prevailing sentiment is likely to continue with a slight change in its value.

Nifty futures recommendation: During the open of Thursday's trading, the March contract moved by 5 points. Thereafter bears gained control of the day's proceedings. The March contract touched an intra-day low of 1823.10 after making a high of 1864.00. It closed with a loss of 22 points with respect to Wednesday's close.

Bear domination during the day terminated the uptrend in the March contract. The long trade exited with a profit of 18 points. Bearish trigger level has now been moved closer to its last traded value. Bear move on Friday is likely to trigger this level.

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Stock futures recommendation: The tradable counters list and their ranking remains intact. The top three traded counters in this segment were State Bank, Satyam and Tata Steel. Thursday's market action had no impact on the recommended counter — State Bank.

None of the counters in the list are in the downtrend. Bear domination on Friday is likely to terminate the prevailing uptrend counters in the list. Selling opportunities are likely to exist in almost all the counters. Buying opportunities are likely to exist in ACC and Satyam. The best bet is likely to be the selling in Reliance. This counter is in the uptrend and has closed at 574.00. Bear pressure on Friday is likely to reverse the uptrend in this counter.

Cash segment: There were no new entries or exits to the top-10 tradable list. The ranking of the list had a minor change. Tata Motors and Tata Steel interchanged their positions. Bears were unsuccessful in initiating the downtrend in the recommended counter — Satyam.

Further bear pressure on Friday could be a threat to the prevailing uptrend counters. On the contrary, the lone downtrend counter — SAIL is likely to be terminated. Bears are likely to have ample opportunities for Friday's trading. A lone buying opportunity is likely to exist in Satyam. Selling in Tata Motors is likely to be the best for Friday's trading. Its sell level is placed closer to its current level. Bear move on Friday has the potential to initiate a fresh downtrend in this counter.

(Note: All price levels refer to the absolute value of the shares traded on the NSE. There is risk of loss in trading.)

The author is a Chennai-based technical analyst and fund management consultant.