``Sentiment turned bearish due to lackluster performance in the castor oil export. Domestic demand of oil also remained low. Liquidity crunch has added the woes of trade. Being a efficient market futures reflects the currant and futures trend in the prices. As far as futures market is concern, low volume is a matter which requires attention. Due to thin volume prices tend to overshoot. '' said Jayesh Shah president ACE. ``At present open futures positions are hovering around 10,000 tonnes, once upon a time it remained as high as 70,000 tonnes. Volume in the futures are falling. Brokers are worried about the business. As fall in volume directly affects their revenue. Rising business cost is a cause of concern for broking community.''he added.

Bear operators havefull command over the market. Traders have incurred huge loss in the trading due to a wild swing in the futures. In the last few days only handful of operators manage to earn at the cost of small time traders, alleged a small trader.

According to a leading analyst market overshoots because of collective buying or selling. When a leading operator go short, everybody rush to sell, simultaneously when he buys everybody rush to cover it. By help of raw money power and good understanding of futures market handful of operators manage to move the market.

The parallel futures, traded at Bhabhar also fell in tandem with official futures traded at Ahmedabad, Rajkot and Mumbai. The March futures opened at Rs 287.51 per 20 kg recently. It fell to Rs 277 in the last week. The bench mark prices for the futures is Rs 287. Price limits are Rs 20 for the futures. Hence all open positions will be deemed at Rs 267 and Rs 307 per 20 kg, said a speculator.

Technical outlook: The April futures opened at Rs 1,551.25 onDecember 21 1998, it rose to Rs 1,561 on January 13, than it fell to Rs 1,423.50 on the January 23. It rebounds to Rs 1,545 from that level due to hectic short covering. Than again it fell to Rs 1,430 on last Friday.

Technicals suggest that main trend is still bearish, but futures is in highly oversold zone. A sharp upward swing as a technical correction cannot be ruled outs.

Momentum indicators like 14 day RSI and Stochastic, both slow and fast indicated that market is in oversold zone. 14 day RSI is 36. Stochastic is seen near 98, in the oversold zone. MACD has penetrated moving average on the down side. Parabolic stop reversal, and moving average indicate that main bearish trend is still intact. The prices fall from Rs 1,516 to Rs 1,430 in a single move, a fall of Rs 85. It should be retrace at least 33 per cent as per the Fibonachi retracement level. Near term target seems Rs 1,455. According to Japanese Candle stick a window near Rs 1,492- Rs 1,496 indicates prices may retest this levels, said achartist using Japanese technical analysis.

In the spot markets, trend is seen still bearish monthly and weekly charts indicates bearishness. MACD is negative. prices ruled below 200 day moving average. Seed prices quoted at Rs 290 per 20 kg. Support seen at Rs 267 said a technical analyst.