The Hindu Business Line : A survivor!

THE stock of HPCL hammered sharply last week and survived the bear onslaught. On a day when the Sensex and Nifty were down over 11 per cent, the stock price of the oil major was down just 5 per cent.

However, during the day, the stock was down over 30 per cent. This came as surprise to the market players as the Congress and Left parties have ruled out privatisation of profitable PSUs. Dealers said this was due to the some market players were short heavily in the futures market.

The talk is that at one stage during the day, the futures of HPCL were available at a discount of almost 15 per cent to the spot price, and this resulted in active buying in futures, which in turn resulted in active buying in the cash segment. Besides this, active buying by local institutions in the stock also revived the stock price. At close, HPCL was down by 4.99 per cent at Rs 314.80 on the BSE with volume of 14.763 lakh shares, and on the NSE, it closed at Rs 314.10, down 5 per cent, with volume of 36.32 lakh shares.

Gains on dividend yield

WITH uncertainty prevailing in the market, bargain hunters are now looking at good defensive stocks. Among this list, the stock that was eyed on Monday was PNB Gilts.

Dealers said several defensive investors were buying the stock for dividend yield purpose. The stock was among the few select stocks that gained. At close, the stock was up 1.03 per cent at Rs 24.50 on the BSE with volume of 1.19 lakh shares, and on the NSE, it closed at Rs 24.65, up 1.65 per cent with volume of 2.68 lakh shares.

The talk is that PNB Gilts is providing dividend yield of 10 per cent based on current market price. The company pays dividend of 25 per cent (or Rs 2.5 per share), and, out of this, 12 per cent as interim dividend has already been paid. Final dividend of 13 per cent was recently announced and several investors were buying shares due to this.

Bright picture

MOST of the market players were surprised over the sudden rise in the shares of Zee Telefilms on Monday. The stock gained 6.44 per cent at Rs 120.65 with volume of 13.27 lakh shares, and, on the NSE, it closed at Rs 120.95, up 6.61 per cent, with volume of 18.21 lakh shares.

Brokers were clueless about the rise in the stock price. A few whispers that could be heard included some surprise announcement by the company in the next few days.

Virendra Verma

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