The fact that the index opened with a downward gap at 4348 points to a technical weakness. The index has no support till the 3830 level. Sounds shocking, is it not? Well it may try and find support at 3960, but that is only a secondary support.

So would the index head down on Wednesday? Now, given the fall of 870 points or around 17 per cent in 8 sessions, some short covering can be expected. And this could happen on Tuesday, the last day of the current NSE week. Correction or otherwise, where can the reaction can take the index up. It could recover to 4460. And do not rule out the possibility of that happening on Tuesday itself. What is needed is FII coming in. Would they come in depends upon how hard the major players play their cards.

But even if FIIs hold their horses, I expect the index to recover to 4260 level on Tuesday. But if FII funds do not flow in substantially, or their sales do not abate, the downtrend would continue after a correction. The impetus that Nasdaq will give at the current juncture has to be given due weight. Should the Nasdaq continue to be weak, the index would continue its southward journey albeit a correction.

But given the current vortex that sucks the Sensex down, traders should look for feelers from the political scenario, besides Nasdaq. Let us now take a look at the volume picture. The number of advances at BSE went down from 613 to 353 with advance volume shrinking from the already low Rs 505 crore to Rs 29 crore. The number of declines went down from 1036 to 984, with decline volume going up from Rs 1628 crore to Rs 1858 crore.

At the NSE the number of advances went down from 330 to 108 with advance volume collapsing from Rs 1085 crore to Rs 27 crore. The number of declines went up from 565 to 802 with decline volume going up from Rs 1484 crore to Rs 1858 crore.