Markets on March 19: Inside bar

The markets bounced back during the final hour to end the day marginally up. Sensex closed 25 points and Nifty finished 12 points higher. ...

The markets bounced back during the final hour to end the day marginally up. Sensex closed 25 points and Nifty finished 12 points higher. Mid-cap and small-cap stock indices also posted gains for the day. On daily chart, Nifty has formed an inside bar, which indicates a time of indecision or consolidation, and a breakout on either side of swing highs will be a trend-deciding move. During the course of the day, Nifty reacted from the support of 20-hourly simple moving average and did manage to close above it. The final-hour bounce just seems to a pullback,which will die near the lower boundary of the rising channel.Bulls dominated the market breadth with 719 advances and 470 declines.

Hourly KST has given a lower top lower bottom signal.Our short- and mid-term biases are down for the target of 2630 and 2450 respectively with the short- and midterm reversal at 2840 and 3111 respectively.

Realty and information technology stocks witnessed buying, while capital goods and auto stocks witnessed some profit booking. From the 30 stocks of Sensex,Sterlite industries (up 4%) and HDFC (up 3%) led the pack of gainers while Larsen & Toubro (down 4%) and BHEL (down 3%) led the pack of losers.