The Hindu Business Line : Bear domination

BEAR dominated over Wednesday's trading activity. The sentiment reading of the tradable counters changed to bearish. Bull move on Thursday is likely to change the sentiment reading in their favour. On the contrary, the bearish sentiment is likely to be strengthened.

Nifty futures recommendation: The February month contract opened with a bear gap of around 2 points. The February contract moved with in a range of around 46 points making an intraday low of 2955. It closed with a loss of around 34 points from its previous close.

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The long position in the February contract remains intact. The exit and sell levels for the February month contract are placed quite far away from its last traded price. In the normal course of trading, these levels are unlikely to be triggered during Thursday's trading.

Stock futures commendation: The composition of the top-10 tradable list had no changes. However, the ranking of the list had minor changes. Tata Motors and ICICI Bank interchanged their positions. Reliance Capital moved up to seventh position and Infosys moved down to ninth position. The top-3 tradable counters in this segment were Tata Steel, Reliance Capital and State Bank.

Both the up trend counters in the top-10 tradable list are likely to be under threat for Thursday's trading.

On the other hand, four down trend counters are likely to be terminated. There are five opportunities on the buy side and a lone opportunity on the sell side. The best for Thursday is likely to be selling in Infosys. This counter is in side ways mode. Bear pressure on Thursday is likely to initiate a fresh down trend in this counter.

Cash segment: The composition of the top-10 tradable list had no changes. However, the ranking of the list had minor changes. VSNL moved up to fourth position and State Bank moved down to sixth position.

All the uptrend and downtrend counters in the top-10 tradable list are likely to be terminated during Thursday's trading. There are four opportunities each on either side of the trading. The best is likely to be selling in Infosys. This counter is in up trend. Bear pressure on Thursday has the potential to reverse the prevailing trend 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 technical analyst and fund management consultant.