The Hindu Business Line : Initial gains not held

FRIDAY market movement was quite indecisive. Bulls gained considerably from the day's trading. The sentiment reading of the tradable counters stands bullish. Bear domination on Monday is likely to reduce the bull count to a bare minimum thereby changing the sentiment reading to bearish.

Otherwise, the prevailing bullish sentiment is likely to be further strengthened.

Nifty futures recommendation: Initially, the October contract gained fifteen points. Later on bears made a strong comeback and wiped out their losses. The October contract moved within a band of 28 points registering an intra-day low of 1785.60. It closed with a marginal loss of two points with respect to Thursday's close.

Click here for table

Initial bull move led to the termination of the downtrend in the October contract. The short trade exited with a loss of five points. Bullish trigger level for the October contract is placed quite closer to its current level.

Bull domination on Monday has the potential to initiate a fresh uptrend in the October contract.

Stock futures recommendation: The composition of the top-10 tradable list remains unchanged. The ranking of the list had some changes. Infosys moved to the fourth position followed by Satyam and Maruti.

Bear move on Monday could be a threat to most of the uptrend counters in the list. On the contrary, the lone downtrend counter Ranbaxy is likely to be terminated.

Selling opportunities are likely to exist in five counters. Buying opportunities are likely to exist in four counters.

Selling in State Bank is likely to be the best for Monday's trading. Bearish trigger level for this counter is placed very close to its last traded value. Bear pressure on Monday is likely to trigger the downtrend in State Bank.

Cash segment: There were no new entries or exits to the top-10 tradable list. The ranking of the list had a few changes. Tata Steel moved to the second position and Infosys to the fifth position.

None of the counters in the list is in the downtrend. Bear domination on Monday is likely to terminate most of the uptrend counters in the list.

Buying opportunities are likely to exist in four counters. Selling opportunities are likely to exist in seven counters.

For Monday, the best bet is likely to be the selling in State Bank. Bear move on Monday is likely to initiate a fresh downtrend in State Bank.

(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 technical analyst and fund management consultant.