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The smallcap index reached an all-time high of 31,304.44 on January 18 this year, after hitting its 52-week low of 20,282.07 on April 19, 2021.

The last time they shrank the balance sheet, the Fed set caps allowing holdings to run off at $50 billion a month -- $30 billion in Treasuries and $20 billion in mortgage backed securities, phased in over a year -- but officials have said they expect to go faster this time around.

A select few companies will announce their March quarter numbers during the week but most of them are smaller ones. Meanwhile, traders will start positioning themselves for the earnings season that will pick pace when TCS declares its numbers on April 11.

According to data available with the depositories, FPIs were net sellers to the tune of Rs 41,123 crore in the equity market last month.

“Keeping the portfolio inflation proof is a difficult task indeed. We have to contend with inflation across the board. Our belief is this year market movement is going to be very stock specific in nature. So bottom up stock picking is going to be the way forward. Our portfolio construct has really not changed significantly. ”

“We have already had a fairly robust kind of a move in the case of defence PSUs and given crude price rise, it is very natural that even the oil and gas PSUs will do well as well. The power generation companies will also see a fairly robust demand coming through.”

"If globally things stay calmer and slight positive, we expect that the index, as well as the stock-specific action, should see a leg up over the next one to two weeks."

"Domestically, we are expecting some earning downgrades for about 50% of the companies which are price takers from the commodity complex. We are very positive on financials and happy to see Bank Nifty recovering. Energy, materials, real estate, cement, industrials are the sectors that tend to do well in a high inflation environment."

Monday may see a stable start to the week. The levels of 17,800 and 17,905 will act as probable resistance points while the supports may come in at 17,500 and 17,320 levels. The trading range for the week will stay wider than usual.

Most equity investors participate only on the buy side and do not have a plan to protect the portfolio against the potential swings in the market, which results in sub-par performance.