Barring Monday action, when we had the wide gap up open, the rest of the week was more or less similar to the earlier ones. You made money last week if you were long going into Monday. After that, it would have been a tough grind. While it seemed like a reset to the buy-the–dip story, the fall on Friday was yet another reset! The Nifty finished poorly, below the gap start of the week, not exactly the kind of move you want to see when you have such a powerful gap. This time I decided to put three time frames into one chart. See below for comments on Chart 1.First the intraday chart. The gap raised tremendous hopes. And why not? The GST reforms are a structural change, after all, and that ought to have been good enough, most of the time. But heck, no. Tuesday and Wednesday saw struggles, but managed to hold the gap and to push higher. It seemed we got it on Thursday but yet again, the thrust was a failure to carry. If readers recall, I had mentioned in the last column that prices should carry past the 25,250 area for bulls to grab the baton. But the attempt fizzled on Friday and not just that, the day saw the crack of the index to finish weak. Why? I know not. All I can state is that the bulls had a chance handed to them and they didn’t take it. Not good.Next we go to the Daily chart (right, bottom). The gap is clearly visible but Friday sets up what looks like an Evening star pattern, with a doji pattern thrown in for Thursday too. If prices trade down in the week ahead, then this pattern implication will come on. Not good.Moving on to the weekly chart (right, top), the week ended depicts as a gravestone doji- not an encouraging pattern. The only worthwhile comment I can make on that is that such a pattern has more of a meaning when it comes at the end of an upmove. Here, it is on the very first move out of a decline. Hence, I would not give it too much credence for now.Where does that leave us? Minding the gap, for sure. As I stated above, if prices trade down into the gap, the next support shall be seen around 24,750. Ideally, the pullback should go no lower than that.What if the prices move up (for whatever reason, we really don’t care!), then, a move past 25,125 will first nullify the evening star. Second, a move above last week highs will nullify the dragonfly djoji (above 25,180). That ought to be good enough for starters. I had done a ‘4-steps to freedom’ chart explanation in my last Charts and Beyond Ep 23 video, which is available free on YouTube and I invite everyone to take a look at that for what else needs to happen on the prices. You will see that there is some work cut out for the Nifty before it can turn bullish once again. Let it do what we need it to do and then we can lend the market our money.On the charts two indications would argue against weakness. First is that the market has fallen for six consecutive weeks and barely lost 5% of prices from the recent high. Second, the rally to the June high exceeded the 78.6% retracement of the fall from the Sept. 2024 high too, even as the Bank Nifty made a new high. Further, in the current fall, Nifty has pulled back to around 23.6% retracement of the March-June rise, while the Bank Nifty has done 38.2%. These are minimal retracements, which imply that the rally strength is still present.Perhaps this is the reason why the momentum indicators and indeed, even trend following indicators, are yet undisturbed. Chart 2 shows the picture of Ichimoku layout on the weekly chart.All lines of the Ichimoku system are still in a bullish phase. The KS line is flat and aligned with the Senkou B line around the 23,800 levels, making that a very good support zone in case the market chooses to decline further. Hence, for swing traders, that would be the stop loss area to trade long during declines if any. Chikou span stands ready to move, implying that if uptrends were to essay now, then chances of a freer movement can ensue, which is good news. Future Kumo is already green, implying that current activity continues to remain within bullish bounds only. With a slight effort (above last week high), prices can move past the TS line too. The TS line is placed at a comfortable distance above the KS line and any rise now can succeed in pulling the KS line too into an ascent.However, a fall beneath the 24,307 level (the recent swing lows) can trip up the comfort rendered by the weekly chart here. Therefore, swing traders may be better off keeping that as a stoploss or buy-dip area rather than the deeper (but stronger) support area suggested above.Neotrader tracks Ichimoku best through different aspects and gives the trend strength status through scores as well. The market is undergoing some kind of consolidation. It can be noted that the Bank Nifty has a slightly elevated bear score compared to the Nifty in the day format, hinting at the possibility of some weakness developing here in the immediate short term.Using the Powertrend aspect of Neotrader, there too I find that the Bank Nifty (and FinNifty) have their short term trends (60 minutes and under) placed in bearish list. Hence I would suggest Bank nifty traders to be on the watchout for some weakness in the banks and financials area. Also to act upon bearish news on big banks, if any.In the RSI stack too, we find that Monthly RSI readings are still bullish but rest of them have receded, implying that a corrective move is in progress. The low values for intraday RSI levels suggest that markets may be somewhat oversold here. But the still-weak RSI readings of the daily and weekly time frames would continue to imply that we are still in a sell-the-rally status. If readers recall, this was the approach suggested over recent times.Looking at the F&O side, the breadth is not so sanguine.The long unwinding column shows a large number compared to long addition. There could be an element of rollover coming in here but that will be more pronounced in the next week. As things stand at the end of the week, the situation doesn’t really favour the bulls much.Why is the market dragging its feet? The local news flow is positive enough. After all, the GST reforms announced are solid, structural changes. In fact, it is the second attempt at putting money in the hands of people (the first was the tax cuts at the budget) and along with interest rate cuts (which of course takes its own time for transmission into the system), they suggest a real interest of the govt to ensure that the economy should bustle. GST Council Meeting Called On Sept. 3-4 Amid Centre's Two-Slab Reform PushThe cold breeze is actually blowing from the US, and as long as Trump keeps trumpeting some thing or the other, we seem hesitant to put our faith into the local factors to move ahead. The Q1 results are done and dusted for now and have not created any misgivings. If anything, they are now created an expectancy for the coming quarters based on a base-effect impact that is likely to put the next set of quarterly numbers into better light.So, evidently, good local news is not allowing the markets to go lower while cold breeze from the US is not allowing the markets to go higher. The FIIs have marginally covered their index shorts (down to 1.70L contracts now) and some scattered buying seen during the week. DIIs are still holding up the fort rather well. IPOs are once again flooding the market, causing a diversion of funds and attention.What we need is for the ill winds from the US to stop blowing. But that is not in our hands and so, we can only hope that they will. Then, we need our next quarterly numbers to show some expectation beats, some surprises and some solid numbers from leader stocks so that the FII attention comes back to them. Small and midcap stocks may have run a bit on the back of local funds chasing them. But that will always be so. But some good results can get the juices flowing in the large cap area, and that can percolate into the small and midcap areas as sentiment boosters too. Talks of changes in Options expiry (doing away with weekly expiries etc) may also have an impact of moving the volumes out of that zone back into equities arena. Now, all these may take a while to happen. So, no rush for us to buy. However, if Nifty crosses 25,260 then a few signals on the Ichimoku will get triggered suggesting some acceleration in the short-term upward. So, that is probably the best bet in the coming week. Aiding this may be the news that the Fed chairman Powell has indicated the possibility of rate cuts. Let’s see how that flows.US Market Rallies As Powell Signals Cut — Dow Hits Record High, Bonds JumpDisclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by experts and investment advisers on NDTV Profit are of their own and not of NDTV Profit. NDTV Profit advises users to consult with their own financial or investment adviser before taking any investment decision.. Read more on Opinion by NDTV Profit.