The Sensex went up by 62 points to close at 4,792 points. The market is charting into a new territory. Therefore, it would be relevant now to figure out the strength of the bullish undercurrent. Forecasting of the upper target to which Sensex could move up would be only of limited practical significance.

What is real is that the bullish undercurrent is widely spread over many scrips. The nature of the market can well be understood when you look closely at the kind of movement one sees in several counters. There has been profit booking on several counters.

But overall the market had advanced. The extent of profit-taking is reflected in market breadth indicators. The number of advances have come down both at the BSE as well as the NSE. At the BSE, advances went down from 1583 to 1189 and at the NSE from 791 to 692. The advance volume at BSE went down from Rs.2020 crore to Rs.1734crore. At the NSE, the advances went down from Rs.2020 crore to Rs.1734 crore. The declines have gone up correspondingly. The BSE 100, BSE 200, BSE 500 all reflect the rise, as indeed the S&P NSE indices. What this means is that the advance is widespread. The S&P Nifty crossing the 1376 is an important land mark and signifies that the market is advancing in a confirmed fashion to higher heights. The technical indicators do show that there is much room upside. The other thing I wish to point out is that this is the third big upmove since mid-93. So do not miss out on the opportunity. At the same time it is my duty to caution common investors about market manipulation. A high dose of news and analysis on a power company in the financial press on Tuesday raises questions about market rigging. SEBI should perhaps investigate why such information was not made avaialble the shareholders at the AGM. It would be unfair for such information to be released soon after AGM, which would lead one to suspect marketmanipulation. Readers should guard themselves against operators enticing new investors at high level with such news, while they themselves get out.