The Hindu Business Line : Volatile movement

Trading activity witnessed volatile movement on Thursday. The sentiment reading of the tradable counters remains marginally bullish. Bear move on Friday is likely to change the sentiment reading in their favour. On the contrary, the prevailing bullish sentiment is likely to be further strengthened with additional counters.

NIFTY FUTURES

The February contract opened with a bull gap of around 20 points from its previous close. However, the bulls could not sustain their initial momentum and gave way to bears. The contract moved within a range of around 54 points making an intra-day low of 4185. It closed with a loss of around 6 points from its previous close.

The February contract entered into a new long position. The long exit and short entry levels are placed quite nearer to its last traded price. These levels are likely to be triggered during the normal course of trading during Friday.

STOCK FUTURES

The composition and ranking of the top-10 tradable list had minor changes. SBI and MTNL gave way to Hindalco and Bajaj Auto. Except IDBI, other counters moved up in the ranking. The top-3 tradable counters in this segment were IDBI, ICICI and SAIL. The long exit level for SBI is placed at 1200.05 and the short exit level for MTNL is placed at 164.40.

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There are five downtrend counters and five uptrend counters in the top-10 tradable list. Except Reliance Capital and Bajaj Auto, other uptrend counters are likely to be under threat for Friday's trading. On the other hand, the downtrend counters Tata Steel, VSNL and Satyam are likely to be terminated. There are three buying opportunities and four selling opportunities for Friday's trading. The best among them is likely to be buying in Tata Steel. This counter is in downtrend. Bull move on Friday is likely to reverse the prevailing trend in this counter.

CASH SEGMENT

The composition and ranking of the top-10 tradable list had minor changes. Reliance Capital gave way to BHEL. BHEL occupied seventh position in the ranking. Infosys, ICICI and Suzlon moved down in the ranking. The long exit level for Reliance Capital is placed at 709.55.

There are four downtrend counters and six uptrend counters in the top-10 tradable list. All the counters are likely to be under threat for Friday's trading. There are four buying opportunities and six selling opportunities for Friday's trading. The best among them is likely to be selling in IDBI. This counter is in uptrend. Bear move on Friday is likely 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 technical analyst and fund management consultant.