Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Wednesday, Feb 11, 2004
Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Wednesday, Feb 11, 2004 |
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Markets
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Stock Markets Columns - Ear to the ground Sugar stocks sweeten up Dinesh Narayanan
COMMODITY prices have always known to influence voting patterns in elections and political parties have a history of colluding with sympathetic businessmen to inflate or deflate prices of essential commodities to swing votes. Soaring onion prices - that were alleged to have been engineered - helped the Congress beat the ruling BJP in Delhi at the 1998 hustings. A market source said that the sugar supplies have stopped since the last week of January. The grapevine says that sugar mills in Maharashtra, most of whom owe allegiance to Mr Sharad Pawar and his Nationalist Congress Party, are creating an artificial shortage through friendly contractors. Prices of the commodity have firmed up to about Rs 17-18 per kg in the retail market. The supply squeeze is helping sugar mills with large inventories raise prices. The stock price of Bannari Amman Sugar rose five per cent to Rs 320.90 per share, Dhampur Sugar went up three per cent to Rs 26.65 a share and Bajaj Hindustan increased 3.2 per cent to Rs 352 apiece.
Those calls from Delhi WHILE the Government has said that it expects to raise more than Rs 10,000 crore by selling part of its equity holding in ONGC Ltd to the public, there are many in the market who are sceptical about whether the issue would find enough investors. Earlier, merchant bankers are said to have advised the Government to split the face value of the company's shares to make it more attractive to the retail investor, a proposal that does not seem to have found favour. But when the issuer is the Government itself, the feat can perhaps be managed in other ways. The stock market grapevine has it that bankers and State-owned insurance companies have been advised to actively invest in the Government's disinvestment programme. It is anybody's guess that an issue backed by the monetary might of public sector giants is unlikely to fail. ONGC shares rose marginally on Tuesday to close at Rs 745.60 per share. While about 5.4 lakh shares were traded on the BSE, nearly 10 lakh shares changed hands on the NSE.
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