Although the undertone remains strong, market players are cautiouslyoptimistic about further rise in the market. Despite the volatility in thefrontline stocks, the Sensex closed at Thursday's level, at 4727.63 - a netloss of 1.18 points over the previous close.

According to Rajiv Sampat at Parag Parikh Financial Advisory Services, thehigher levels are turning out to be supply zones. According to Sampat, it isprimarily ``wait and watch since the trend is still not clear.''

And for Arun Kejriwal at Nikko Stock Broking, the market is poised to weakenover the next two-three trading sessions. ``With ICE meltdown and mutualfunds giving net negative figures for the last few trading session, it seemsthere are only speculators and the retail investors. This is surely not avery good sign for the market,'' opined Kejriwal.

On Friday, the last day of trading in the current settlement, although anumber of frontline infotech stocks closed lower, a lot of interest is beinggenerated in a number of other non-IT stocks, MTNL and Colgate-Pamoliveleading the pack. According to Sebi's FII investment figures for Thursday,foreign funds were net sellers to the tune of Rs 49.3 crore.

According to dealers, there were substantial fund selling, mainly in thetechnology counters. However, a number of foreign funds were buying into oldeconomy counters.

For Saturday's badla session, dealers expect the rate to firm up slightly onthe back of increased demand for funds and also that the call rates hadfirmed up over the last few days.

While the Sensex traded in a narrow range, a large number of software stocksshowed wild movements on Friday. The volatility factor was again at its peakin the software stocks. Stocks like Silverline, HFCL, Global Tele, DSQ Soft,Infosys and Satyam Computers showed extreme moves. Meanwhile, with sustainedbuying from all fronts, the old economy stocks remained strong for a majorpart of the day.

MTNL hit the 12 per cent circuit. Telco, Grasim, ACC, L&T, and SBI alsoattracted huge buying. Reliance also attracted buying but failed to sustainthe uptrend, and fell sharply in the second half of the day.

Meanwhile, the volatility had its impact on trading volume which touched a3-month high on the BSE. It stood at Rs 4537 crore, and the same figure onthe NSE stood at Rs 6041 crore.

Meanwhile, the BSE sensex opened at 4772 points, touched a peak of 4797.59points, the low for the day was 4712.21 points. It closed at 4727.63 points. Meanwhile, the S&P CNX Nifty opened at 1464.30 points, touched a peak of1485.50 points and closed at 1465.70 points. The low for the day was 1458.90points. On the BSE, the number of advances stood at 692 and the number ofdeclines was at 846, Around 170 scrips remained unchanged.