• Investment World
• eWorld
• Catalyst
• Mentor
• Life
• Canvas
• Praxis
• Urban Pulse
• Brand Quest

K.S. Badri Narayanan

SNAPPING the five-week winning streak, the US markets ended last week in negative territory. Fears over further downside earnings revisions from US corporates seemed to have affected the sentiment. BellSouth Corp and Sun Microsystems Inc had revised their earnings' forecast downwards, creating doubts in the investors' mind on the US corporate performance.

On the back of this, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 2.4 per cent last week at 8663.50 over the previous week close of 8872.96; the tech-laced Nasdaq's fall was even sharper at 1314.85 (1385.60), a drop of 4.8 per cent. The broader S&P 500 lost 2.6 per cent.

The indices' five-week winning streak was its longest in two years.

However, the Indian bourses displayed a firm trend during the week gone by. Reports that Life Insurance Corporation India turned largest investor recently and the Government's plan to end Unit Trust of India's woes seemed to have imparted a feel-good factor to the markets. (The Government did come out with a bailout package for the beleaguered UTI on Saturday). The Bombay Stock Exchange's Sensitive index closed the week at 3181.23 (3119.18) and the National Stock Exchange's S&P CNX Nifty at 1010.60 (995.20).

Despite negative closings by the US markets, most of the Indian ADRs closed on a strong note. Satyam Computer and Wipro were among the major gainers. Market talk that Wipro has bagged an order worth $800 million seemed to have lifted the sentiment towards the counter. Wipro closed at $26.10 ($25.40) while the underlying domestic stock closed at Rs 1269.65 (Rs 1214.70).

There was also a similar talk in Satyam that the company is likely to bag an order from CSC Corporation. Another rumour had it that the Government of Singapore had picked up some stake in the company. Another report was that Tatas had emerged the front-runner to buy out Satyam Computer's 52 per cent stake in Satyam Infoway (Sify) and offered about $70 million to buy the stake. On the back of these talks, the counter witnessed buying interest. The ADR finished the week at $10.40 ($9.57) and the underlying stock at Rs 240.50 (Rs 221.60). Sify closed the week at $.63 ($.7090).

However, IT major Infosys closed the week on a quiet note at $56.60 ($56.10).

Telecom majors, VSNL and MTNL, also ended the week on flat note. While MTNL closed unchanged at $5.25, VSNL finished slightly higher at $5.31 ($5.25).

Pharmaceutical major Dr. Reddy's Laboratories ended on strong note at $17.89 ($17.65). Dr Reddy's, which had applied to sell a low-cost version of the anti-fungal medicine Lamisil, filed an appeal in the Court seeking to invalidate a patent owned by Novartis AG. Earlier in July, the Swiss major, filed suit against Dr Reddy's saying the generic-drug maker's application before the USFDA was a violation of a Novartis patent that expires in 2006.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section
Offloading through bulk deals — UTI-I talks soon with insurance cos, banks

Copyright © 2002, The Hindu Business Line. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu Business Line