Marketmen gave firm indication of their optimism, when the Sensex opened at 4728, some 18 points above Friday's close of 4728. I had dreaded the possibility of the index breaking down through the 4705 level, which would have posed a serious threat to the bulls. Luckily, this never happened even in the intra-day as the index never looked back after its opening. The intra day high was an impressive 4839, recording a whopping jump of 111 points over the opening. The market has closed with a strong bullish undertone. It closed at 4833 points, just 6 points down from the day's high. With this kick-off, one can look forward to the bull market strengthening further during the week.

The stochastic as well as the RSI indicators have signalled a buy. The index can now look forward toreaching 4915. It remains to be seen if the NSE week-end on Tuesday initiates some profit booking. Even if it does, it is quite likely that by the end of the session the market would have digested this correction and consolidated once more.

The market breadth data would give you a good idea of how much bullish the players are. At the BSE, the volume of those shares which were moving up, in advance, almost doubled from Rs.629 crore to Rs.1435 crore. The story at the NSE was similar, with advance volume ballooning to more than double the previous figure. It moved up from Rs 825 crore to Rs 1959 crore. The volume in decline has almost evaporated. At the BSE, the volume in decline dropped from Rs 1420 crore to a neglible Rs 67 crore.

In other words, most scrips moved up on Monday! At the NSE, the volume in decline shrunk from Rs 1160 crore to Rs 219 crore. Infosys Technologies contributed a mega dose to the index gain on Monday. But even if there be profit booking on this counter, there is potential in otherscrips to keep the market momentum up.