Riding on selective scrips, the Sensex gained 15 points over Monday's close. The market opened with the index at 4285.65, which is 6 points lower than the previous day's close of 4291.5. As I mentioned yesterday, the market has grown weak and it touched a high of only 4313, which is a whopping 78 points lower than the high on Monday.

On the low side, it slipped to 4252, another 37 points lower than the previous low. In the process, it also touched the supporting uptrend slope.The day has been marked by the Sensex closing at 4306, which is 15 points higher than the Monday's closing. One must note at this point several interesting features. HLL after a relentless advance in the last few days, managed to post just 0.2 per cent gain.

BHEL fails to advance and is slipping. ITC's story is something similar to HLL. It could post a marginal gain of 0.54 per cent. Hindalco, despite its recent strident advances, continued to move up and posted a gain of 1.75 per cent. SAIL, after witnessing some profit booking, moved up again. It went up 9.2 per cent. The other heavy weight, SBI, made a notional gain of 0.2 per cent.

Several second rung scrips continued to make advances, despite the market hitting the peak. Arvind, Colgate and Nestle posted impressive gains.The market has still an undertone of firmness if one were to go by the figures of advances and declines. Around 802 scrips had advanced with a turnover of Rs 645 crore as against 701 scrips which had declined with a turnover of Rs 299 crore. Scrips worth Rs 22 crore (377) remained unchanged.For Wednesday, with the trend line support at 4247, there are opportunities for good trades. On Tuesday, the market has closed some 60 points above the support level. True that the market has not been able to move up higher.But, a minor correction was on cards. And this correction has come about not in terms of closing values, but otherwise. The Sensex is not able to move up and is clearly slipping.

But, it has a good chance of opening close to the support or slightly higher. But what would be interesting is the day's range. One should expect limited play, buying close to support and selling up on a limited range.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.