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THE counter of Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) is on a downslide over the last few days in line with the overall market.

However, the fall in the price is much more than Sensex and Nifty. If the market talk is to be believed, selling in the ONGC counter is mainly due to its IPO next month.

Even though the pricing would be decided just before the issue opens dealers said it would be below Rs 700. However, some brokers said selling is mainly by players who have bought shares on borrowed funds.

On Tuesday, the stock was down 6.21 per cent at Rs 692.75 on the BSE with volume of 4.90 lakh shares; on the NSE it closed at Rs 692, down 6.65 per cent with volume of 13.69 lakh shares.

Defensive bet

ON a day when most of the bluechips fell, fast moving consumer goods major Hindustan Lever Ltd (HLL) bucked the trend.

The stock gained 1.56 per cent at Rs 191.70 on the BSE with a volume of 10.59 lakh shares, and on the NSE it closed at Rs 190.20, up 1.22 per cent with a volume of 33.75 lakh shares.

Dealers said, in the current uncertain environment, most of the institutional investors were buying shares of HLL, as the stock is a defensive play. Even during the rise of the Sensex from 3000 to 6000 levels, there was hardly any rise in the stock price of HLL.

Heavy buying in indices

IT was another day of volatile movement in the stock indices. In fact, Tuesday trading was even more volatile than last week.

BSE Sensex, which was down by around 120 points, recovered sharply after 3 p.m.. Sensex recovered around 100 points from the low levels in the last 15 minutes. Even Nifty gained by around 25 points in the last 15 minutes. Dealers said the sharp upswings were mainly due to heavy buying of the two indices through basket trading. Around Rs 150-Rs 200 crore of index buying by institutional investors resulted in the sharp rise of indices.

Virendra Verma

More Stories on : Stock Markets | Ear to the ground

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