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Misconception regarding the new general anti-avoidance rules (GAAR) spread panic in the market last week. Rumours are afloat that the tax authorities will use these rules to bring all participatory note (PN) holders and FIIs investing through tax havens in to the tax net.

Given the length to which the FM went to placate stock market players in the Union Budget speech, it is highly unlikely that he will impose a blanket tax on all PNs that make up 16 per cent of the total FII assets currently. Surely he knows that our market is not deep enough to withstand the sell-off that such an event can trigger?

Again the fact that there are many who use PNs due to reasons other than tax planning and that these instruments do not have any interest in the assets of the company are also arguments against taxing them.

But it is also true that a section of funds that enters our stock market is just black money camouflaged as FII money or PNs.

The Government should have the right to take closer look at the source of such money. The tax authorities might investigate a couple of cases and that could prove to be a deterrent to other wrongdoers. It would be wrong to panic at the thought that the tax men will form an army and run down all such cases.

Over time, genuine FII funds will make up for reduction in these funds. Value of PNs is down 60 per cent from the peak of Rs 4,50,000 crore in October 2007 (to end of February 2012). Total FII assets are up 20 per cent in the same period.

Derivative expiry also contributed to the volatility. But there was no bear squeeze and the stocks just slipped slightly lower in to the expiry.

We have a three-day week coming up and most market players might prefer to take off to the hills and beaches after the torrid time in the market last month. Action is, therefore, likely to be tepid next week.

Friday's recovery has helped salvage the daily oscillators and they are reversing higher. Both the Sensex and the Nifty reversed upward from the 200-day moving average last week. Weekly oscillators are dipping but they continue in the positive zone.

The implication is that the medium-term trend continues to be up for both the indices.

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Index Outlook - Resilient show by stocks