``There has been delivery-based selling in lot of counters during the week and has been bought by traders. This is the primary reason why net long positions and demand for funds has gone up,'' said a market participant. The turnover for the top 50 scrips in the badla market moved up from Rs 1,438 crore last week to Rs 1,564 crore.

``Despite the rise in long positions and badla rates, the market looks a bit shaky and may not move up. This could trigger the unwinding of these positions, leading to a further drop in indices,'' said a broker.

In the absence of any substantial inflows from the foreign institutional investors, the market has slipped into the hands of traders and operators. Despitethe increase in long positions, brokers expect the market to remain weak.

``Next week is crucial since we will see results from index heavy weights like HLL, ITC, SBI and ACC. Each of these companies will mirror the trend in their industries. We are in a corrective phase and if these companies do not reflect the strong recovery expectations (especially SBI and ACC), the correction in the market will accelerate. The downside at the current levels is 4390 for the Sensex,'' said Maulik G Sharedalal of Kaji & Maulik Securities.

According to brokers, while the HLL results are expected to be good, the stock has already run up by 15 per cent in five trading sessions. Hence, it will be tempting to book profits here. HLL, which commands a fourth of the Sensex weight, holds the key to the Sensex level when the market resumes trading on Monday. HLL attracted an undha badla of Rs 8 on the higher side, signifying large short positions at the counter. The long position in the counter is 36,000 shares with shortpositions at 81,000 shares.