Volumes at the BSE, which have been rising in the last three sessions rose further. It went up from Rs.3573 crore to Rs 4204 crore. Bullish fervour was in a highly vibrant pitch lending high volatility on the upside. Stock prices moved up sharply. However, profit-booking emerged in several counters at intra day high levels. This is rather a peculiar phenomenon. It is akin to predominance of day trading, though not exactly. What really happens is this. In a block of, say 3 days, stock prices gather momentum and volume. But further rise is aborted as punters are in a hurry to book profit in the short run. They are not willing to take chances that the run will continue further up.

But despite that approach, the bottoms have been rising. The Sensex opened on a rather subdued note at 4610, down 12 points from Monday's close of 4622. It moved up a good 57 points to post an intra-day high of 4667, which was a 17 points improvement day over day. The day's low at 4594 was marginally down by 6 points. The index ended the day at 4615, losing 7 points day-over-day.

The advance-decline figures have to be read moderating for what has already been said earlier. The number of advances went down at the BSE from 1151 to 1150, while the declines increased from 818 to 899. Advance volumes went down from Rs 2204 crore to Rs 1638 crores, due to the rush for profit booking at top ends. The decline volume went up from Rs 926 crore to Rs 1261 crore. The NSE figures reflect the bullish undercurrent more truly. The number of advances went up from 554 to 808 and declines went down from 571 to 325. Advance volumes went up from Rs 2390 crore to Rs 2750 crore, and decline volumes shrunk from Rs 1013 crore to Rs 312 crore.

The daily stochastic is close to the oversold region and with buoyancy in volume and intra-day hype, it is reasonable to expect the market to improve further.