Weekend Views On Nifty for March 23 - Manoj Bhagra

Another week goes by and now as we enter into the derivatives expiry week, things would get a bit volatile. Nifty has given some good points to the longs and equally frustrating moments to the shorts. The triangle on the weekly chart below is still in play, albeit this pullback is shaking the faith of quite a few bears. The LH and LL sequence is still on. The price on the weekly has closed just shy of the 20-period MA at 2823 (Shorts should have tight stops between 2835/50). I personally would like to hold a bullish bias if I see a bullish divergence on the MACD. I have annotated the chart with ABC move in MACD where C is still far from reality, nevertheless a possibility.

The Daily chart shows the broad range that we we have been in, for the last 5 months. Between this range, there are smaller ranges (right now 2680/2880 is in play with 2700 as important pivot).

Nifty has been struggling with the 20- and 50-period MA. As of now we are still moving in a downward channel and the lower highs and lower lows are also clearly visible. The RSI is again at those precarious levels from where we often pulled back after making tops. 2835/50 remain a good resistance on the daily chart whereas the support lies at 2715/2700/2680.

This brings us to the hourly chart, which is the only chart showing a bullish trend, thus making the Nifty short-term up (remember it is Weekly and Daily down). The gap-down resistance marked in red has held well so far. As for the supports, shaded in yellow, are at Fibonacci confluences, the first one at 2765/55 has the 200-period MA just lined below it with 50 not far below either. The second line of defense is at 2715/2700 level. What is more intriguing is that there is large gap below (shaded in blue) which remains untested and unfilled. I personally feel this ought to be tested and partially filled.


"An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory." Friedrich Engels

Gold...As Confusing and Scary As Can Get

Gold could fast turn in to the new hunting ground for the bears. Click on the chart above for larger view and analysis.

Weekend Views on Nifty for March 16 - Manoj Bhagra

This weekend I have just posted the charts with my ramblings on the sidelines. So here it goes:

The Weekly Picture:


The Daily Drama:
And The Hourly Break:
"Do not confuse motion and progress. A rocking horse keeps moving but does not make any progress." Alfred Montpert

Weekend Views On Nifty for March 9 - Manoj Bhagra

The weekly chart below is a picture that would scare many a Bull. What we have between the two (red and blue) trend lines is one hell of a triangle of almost a 1000 points, and if all goes well for the bears then this line of action goes something like this: 2500 straight down to 2280 straight down to 2200 and then…..eeeks, I am even scared to write further!

The only thing that fails this triangle is if the price closes above the upper (red) line of this triangle making this whole formation a figment of our imagination. Wishful thinking? Yes, pretty much, considering the fact that the 2825/50 zone is the pullback and retest of this formation, with both the lower (blue) trend line and the 20-period MA aligning there.

So far we have held well vis-a-vis the international markets. But just one close below 2500 will be enough for all the analysts screaming BLOOD ON THE STREET (I bet some have already started screaming).


The Daily isn’t any different from weekly. We had a small H&S breakdown and now a retest of neckline at approximately 2680 is not ruled out. The blue support line drawn at 2525 is kind of sanctum sanctorum for the bulls. The overhead resistance is at 2660/80 and finally the 20-period MA is at approximately 2780.

The hourly chart below has a nice channel enveloping the price action. The 2660 mentioned above is nothing but the channel resistance coupled with the 50-period MA on the hourly chart. This is the level which should witness some action because breaking above this is a straight 100-point move! A retest of 2570 area is not ruled out; in fact, personally, I would like this to be revisited and strengthened before we convincingly try to break the 2660 barrier. Anything below this should be strict stop for longs, if any initiated on Friday. Trading would be light and cautious on Monday considering the fact that we have two consecutive holidays on Tuesday and Wednesday.

"It is never too late to be what you might have been." George Elliot

Weekend Nifty Views for March 2 - Manoj Bhagra

Nifty had done practically nothing, all through the last week. Take a look at the last weekly bar and you will know what I mean by Nothing! So far we have just avoided falling in tandem with S&P/DOW but I really wonder how long will we hold our own. The broad weekly range is shaded in blue.

I have very often commented that whenever the price stretches to far away from the MAs, it always reverts to the mean, or moves sideways so as to enable the MAs to come within striking distance to further enable a valid crossover or generate a reaction. I have illustrated this in the weekly chart below. All through last week we were talking about 2850 as a resistance to reckon with, well the 20-period MA on the weekly is right about there.



Like I mentioned earlier, nothing in particular to write about Nifty. The levels it seems are very clearly 2850 and 2700 for bullish and bearish bias respectively. The daily shows the coil which is almost defunct now since we have moved to close to the apex while we have the 20- and the 50-period MAs placed horizontally overhead to provide adequate resistance.


The hourly is a self-illustrating chart. Nothing to explain in there. The resistances are already marked with fibs and MAs. As regards to supports, the less said the better, because frankly there isn’t just any REAL support. Personally I wouldn’t be comfortable trading Nifty right now but for people who are positional long 2680-2700 is a good place for stops.



"Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Nifty Update for December 3 - Manoj Bhagra

The daily chart below closed with what one would call a hammer, if you are a follower of the oriental charts. What’s more important is that it jabbed the lower line of the triangle and now is sitting on the edge. I guess the bear just got bigger or is it just a false break to the down side? The 20-period MA is at approx 2810 level and upper trend line resistance is at our much tested and held 2860/70. Supports? There are none; only illusions of supports (anyway they don’t even hold like the resistances are doing). At the risk of being repetitive I am once again quoting a saying that there are no resistances in a bull market and no supports in a bear market.


Coming to the hourly chart, we can see that the triangle (drawn in dashed red and blue lines) is wasted. The price is right at the apex, with both the 20 and 50 periods MA’s nesting at 2700/2710. This might prove a resistance for tomorrow.

ll in all a bit confused state of things, if you are good at intraday scalping you are in the game, but if you are the positional types, its better to wait for clear signals to emerge. The broader levels discussed earlier on the weekend post still hold ground. How about practicin patience? Three important P’s to trading are: Patience, patience and a whole lot of PATIENCE!




"You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today."

Abraham Lincoln

Weekend Views On Nifty November 30 - Manoj Bhagra

I am going to be very short and sweet with my weekend analysis of Nifty. The weekly chart below has an Inside Bar. Logically the high of 2790 and the low 2633 need to be broken on either side to take the position, with the stop placed at the high or low of the IB, depending upon the direction of the trade. 2835 and 2870 are stiff resistances in case of a upward breakout. Below 2633 we have 2590/50 and once again all important 2500. No real bullish signals from the RSI and MACD yet.

The daily chart below has our triangle intact so not commenting much about it till we get the direction of the breakout. The 20-period MA is at 2830 and is likely to provide some resistance whereas the support is at 2640/50. There is a range contraction happening, waiting for a break!

The hourly chart below is where we have all the action happening, at least some clues there. This is the fourth time we are knocking on the red dashed trend line. It is said (just said, it is not the law) that if price knocks on a trendline three or more times, the chances of it breaking become high. We have a good support underneath at 2710/25 by the way of two converging MAs; the 20-period and the 50-period MA. A break above 2780, the price might attempt to aim for the 200-period MA at approximately 3030 levels. The flip side is the stiff resistance at 2870 and 2960; add to this the little negative divergence we are seeing on the MACD histogram.


We are nowadays reacting more to global cues and overnight news, so much care has to be taken in taking positions as all these opening gaps are really making the charts all the more difficult to interpret.

All substance is energy in motion. It lives and flows. Money is symbolically a golden, flowing stream of concretized vital energy - The Magical Work of the Soul

Nifty Views for November 26 - Manoj Bhagra

Hmm… just another news-based gap that got sold in to. CITI! They said never sleeps…, and it looks like its desperately trying harder not to drop dead once and for all….all those sleepless years do take their toll! Any lessons? Yeah one must always make sure one has enough sleep…!

Bad joke? Yeah it is ....need to work on my humor too. Anyway let me just leave CITI and their problems and concentrate on our own markets.

We continued from where we left of on Friday, a strong close of Dow leading to a strong opening of the Asian markets and we followed. Yesterday’s news about the bailout of the CITI, again lead to global euphoria and we as usual, in our exuberance opened gap up but sold out pretty fast too.

I said the road ahead is paved with a lot of resistances and that too pretty mean types, just news won’t help; we need a solid push and that comes with conviction - a commodity bulls are lacking and bears seem to have aplenty.

The daily chart below looks like a picture of calm but much turbulence is going around underneath it. Tough job to even break out of the 20-period moving average. Any break below 2550 might trigger a selloff whereas a break above 2960 might lead us to higher grounds that is if you consider 3060, a ground high enough - some meanies are there with abundant supply - that and we speak again.

Turbulence, I mentioned earlier is more visible in the hourly chart; we have broken down from a channel (if you prefer, you can call it a bear flag; to each his own, as long as you believe in your own). This was preceded by a failure to hold on to the 50-period MA. Once this flopped, the 20-period MA looked like a cakewalk for eager bears.

If we don’t have any surprises from Dow overnight then tomorrow 2665 and 2725 itself might be a Herculean task for the bulls. Speaking about the supports 2625/2600 and 2550, as if they really matter (pardon my cynicism because past action has shown all supports getting blown without a whimper). Actually what really matters is only 2500 and how we react there!

"You have within you right now, everything you need to deal with whatever the world can throw at you." - Brian Tracy

Weekend Views On Nifty November 23 - Manoj Bhagra

We see that 2500 holds and so does the hope for the last of the Mohicans (bulls). I do get to keep my faith for a while (remember how I kept on harping about 2500 in all my previous posts) as the all red week, ends with a ray of hope. Time to scream Reversal! Nope that happens only above 3250! So what do we have? Well for starters we have a new range of almost 750 points (for traders to flirt with) from 2500 to 3250, which on breaking on either side would have a swing of at least 500 odd points. Another interesting thing has happened in the last week. The Sensex has made a new 3 year low close and nifty hasn’t. In fact if you plot the Sensex and Nifty chart on closing basis (a line chart) you will see we have a LL in Sensex and a teeny weenie HL in Nifty. Frankly I don’t know what to make out of it (remember I am just a guy who is into his baby steps), all I could think was of the DOW tenet; The Averages Must Confirm Each Other!

Let’s take a quick peek at the weekly chart below and see what it has in store for us. Yeah! Yeah the support is the 2500 (by this I mean just the intraday penetrations wont help the bears but a close below 2500 is needed). And as for the resistances, the lesser said the better, for they are in plenty and they are mean. 2860/2950 and 3030 are their for starters, take your pick! Speaking of the chart, not a Rembrandt in strict sense but I guess it will do for what I am tryin2see. The MACD lines are still not into a buy, the RSI is a tad below 30 (signaling oversold for the time being) is yet to break its trend line to signal a concrete buy. But most importantly none of these two indicators are showing any signs of positive divergence (remember a positive divergence on weekly charts is one of the most powerful signals and it aint happening yet).



Moving on to the daily chart; not really something the bulls would like to see. Quiet a paradox here; I have pasted a line chart of the recent move on closing basis. Paradox? Well the closing (Line chart) shows, what many would see it as a double bottom (I feel it’s a bit premature for that coz for a DB to confirm it must break above the intermediate pivot), I would rather say it’s a successful retest of the Low for the time being! But when we move to the conventional bar chart we have a triangle in the making (used some pink lines here for the Technicolor effect!) which is looking more bearish in its connotations and is more likely to break to the down side (Yes we wait for THE CONFIRMATION!). Confused? At least I am! The 20 period MA overhead at 2835 odd levels is likely to play a spoil sport. The MACD lines not giving any clear signal yet.



Time to go long? Why not, as long as 2500 holds there is hope…. Positional Long…I don’t think so! We are in a trading range and must trade with shoot and scoot mentality, tighter stops, as things get too volatile. Now days we are reacting to the global chills and spills and with so much of negative news coming in everyday its getting scary to even hold overnight positions. O boy it’s so hard to keep your faith alive in these tryin times. As for me I am just tryin2trade!!!


"People rarely succeed unless they have fun in what they are doing."
Dale Carnegie

Nifty Views for November 20 - Manoj Bhagra

Someone had aptly said that there are no resistances in a bull market and there are no supports in a bear market. This seems to be playing unusually well nowadays, we are banging on to the resistances only to be pushed back and when we come to supports they just plop.

Let’s take a brief look at today’s action and see what we can see for tomorrow. The chart on the left is the hourly chart, we can see a series of LH’s and LL’s in the making…yup…downtrend…no marks for guessing that. Every rise on the hourly chart is barely making it to the 20 periods MA and reverting. All intraday pullbacks are met with strong line of supply and eager bears ready to unleash new shorts. Hourly chart doesn’t show any supports below, other than the trend line below, but I am beginning to doubt weather it would hold.

The daily chart on the right shows we have just managed to close above 61.8% retracement, the last point of hope for all the leftover bulls! Like I have been often saying that for me the game is over if we break and trade below 2500 (its here where we would start eating into our tail!). And if we talk about the up moves from here…man….we need to really do better than the intraday upswings we’ve been doing so far. It is a painful exercise now starting with 2695/2700 to 2770 to 2860 to 2950 to 3060 and …..Zzzz… the story goes on!

"The minute you settle for less than you deserve, you get even less than you settled for." - Maureen Dowd

Weekend Views On Nifty - Manoj Bhagra

The daily chart below shows that we are still struggling to conquer and close consistently above the 20 period MA. We are moving in tight ranges but unfortunately the bias is down. We have a bull flag happening, marked in pink lines but this only gets confirmed once we trade above 3070/3115 levels which of course is also near the 3160 levels we are hoping for our inverse H&S breakout.

Speaking of pattern failure we will negate the flag pattern if we fall below 2750. I am still betting on 2700/2750 to hold (wishful thinking again!) and as far as going down to check the lows goes, I am of the view that till 2500 the Nifty is safe for bulls - no worries.

For now 2750 to 2950 (breaking either should generate about 200 points) is the new range we have made, and between this range we have 2860/70 an an important pivot, which if once crossed, would give a fast 100 points to the upside.

Once again, I wish to reiterate with so much of wild swings in global markets and news-based rises and falls (which is what we are doing off late), just make sure that if in doubt, just be OUT and for people who are in, the magic phrase coined long long time back is USE STOPS!

"Everyone has his burden. What counts is how you carry it." - Merle Miller.

Quo Vadis? Nifty! - Manoj Bhagra

We have a holiday today, so I guess lucky to have avoided another fall considering the weak global markets around us. Today also saw the release of Inflation Figures which surprisingly have reverted to single digits. A cause of celebration? Why not? A small rally? Sure! Isn’t it how we reacted to IIP numbers yesterday before plummeting.

The range mentioned on my last weekend post 2850 to 3250 for a breakout on either side held well. Now the bias shifts to 2750/2700 - last hope for bulls - because any break below 2700 is surely going to be testing time for the bulls.

A quick glance at the daily chart of Nifty shows we had reacted to our long term trend line and snapped back. It has also become too much of a work for the bulls to even stay and close above the 20 period-MA (drawn in green). We have closed again at the 38.2 percent retracement, much will depend on who takes control from here.

The hopeful bulls are looking to a pullback from here, and draw, what looks like an inverted complex H&S pattern with a breakout above 3160 (drawn on closing basis on the chart); can’t really blame them, as I have been often saying, "Hope lays eternal in a bull’s heart!"

The overhead resistances, which I find are much harder to overcome now, are at 2950/3050. Whereas the supports which are so easily taken out are at 2750/2650. So we can say that our range has shifted with a negative bias for now.

Nifty Recap for November 7 - Manoj Bhagra

A quick analysis of today’s action, Nifty was weak from the morning trade itself, courtesy the weak global cues. The late afternoon surge by bulls was met by severe resistance and now we are sitting on 38.2% retracement of the recent rally. We have a good support at 2750, from where another push can be expected by the bulls. It won’t be a bad idea to go long if you see 2725/50 holding; small position, small stop for a target of 2950/3000 for starters! Anything below 2600 can mean attempting to retest the bottom…but we will come to it later, like I said step by step!

One of the most helpful things that anybody can learn is to give up trying to catch the last eighth - or the first. These are two most expensive eighths in the world... Larry Livingston.

Nifty Needs a Breather - Manoj Bhagra

Voila! Our step-by-step approach to things worked wonderfully. It is better this way, than to get notexcited and throw caution to the winds. I did not update the blog yesterday; anyways what was written on the weekend post has played out to perfection.

We have approached the so-called area 3175/3200 by slowly overtaking the resistances at 3050 and 3150. If you have observed the intraday action for last three days, we have had good dips and rangebound moves for most part of the day, before surging in the late afternoon trades to give ourselves higher closes at the end of each day.

This action has also bought down the nearest 20-period MA (on the EOD), and that is what we have kissed today. Logically we should see a reaction here, considering the fact that this is also the trendline resistance. We are getting overbought on the hourly (charts above-left), and the MACD histogram is sloping down. The crossover of the 20- and 50-period moving averages at 2950 is a good area of support on the hourly charts, though now 3050 also might hold the fort.

As far as the Daily chart is concerned, as mentioned earlier, we have approached the resistance zone and it would be a good idea to catch a breather before attempting the next up move to 3300-3350.

Another point of concern is that in all our excitement of this furious run-up we have to ponder upon a few unfilled gaps we have left below. The sooner they are closed the better for us.

“The good fighters of old first put themselves beyond the possibility of defeat and then waited for an opportunity of defeating the enemy. To secure ourselves against defeat lies in our own hands, but the opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself.” (from Sun Tzu’s Art of War).