Brokers feel that the market has bottomed out at Wednesday's level of 3,483 points and expect the market to move in the band of 3,400 to 3,900.

"The market seems to have found its downside with today's low of 3,483. The FM has kept some options open and we expect the market to revive especially if buyback comes through," says Chetan Shah, director, Asian Market Securities.

After analysing and building an opinion on the budgetary proposals, the market seems to be hinging its hopes on issues like buybackwhich did not come through in the budget. In fact, the market seems to be sowing seeds of a bull run around buyback of shares and the issue seems to be the only card with the bulls for driving the market northwards. "Buyback was one announcement that the market had keenly awaited," says Ashok Agarwal, member-broker, Delhi Stock Exchange. The sentiment is optimistic on expectations of buyback but we will see a downward rally if buy-back does not come along," says Gul Tekchandani, CIO, Sun F&C Asset Management Company.

The FII selling pressure in the past few days has also aided the slide in indices. Coupled with their worries on the rupee front, the FIIs seem to have adopted a negative outlook after the budget. "With the onset of June, they are also facing redemption pressure," says an analyst with a leading institutional brokerage house. He expects FIIs to continue to be bearish for the next three months. "The foreign investors are worried that the issues pertaining to the rupee have not been properlyaddressed by the budget," says Ashok Agrawal.

On the other hand, a section of the market feels that the budget has missed a golden opportunity for reviving the interest of domestic investors. During the past one-and-a-half months, there has been a net FII outflow every week but still the market held ground which means that domestic interest is being generated.

"At this point, the budget was very crucial and certain revenue neutral market sops could have helped a great deal. The domestic investor feels that there is nothing for him in the budget. Even now, measures like buyback of shares and increasing the limit of creeping acquisition form 2 per cent to 10 per cent per year will help markets move up. Otherwise, enthusiasm will wane and the market would continue to slip," says Vijay Bhushan of Bharat Bhushan and Sons. According to one estimate, after the budget the market lost close to Rs 45,000-crore worth of market capitalisation till Tuesday.

"This clearly indicates that after scanning and weighingthe budget proposals, the market feels that not enough has been done," says a Mumbai-based broker.

Adds Rajesh Jain of Pranav Securities, "The market has been bearish the last few days following a technical correction. It had been in an overbought position and the budget also did not have any vision which would have given a boost to the economy or the capital market."

Amidst the drop in indices, the market has identified the winners from the budget and sees the fall as an opportunity to pick up stocks from these sectors at attractive valuations.

After a gap of almost two years, cyclical stocks like cement and steel are back on the buying list, along with all-weather stocks like software and pharmaceuticals. The market also expects the FMCG sector to provide good returns despite the imposition of the excise duty. At the same time, the market is bearish on sectors like automobiles.

"We are very bullish on cement because with a 50 per cent increased outlay for housing and construction. Impetus fromcement will have an affect on steel industry," says Chetan Shah, a BSE broker. "I am bearish on a short-term basis on FMCG, pharma and auto sectors and cautiously bullish on steel, cement, sugar and paper," says Rajesh Jain.