The Hindu Business Line : Infosys finishes on firm note, VSNL ends weak

THANKS to the proposal from Saudi Arabia to increase crude oil output, the US markets were able to arrest the downtrend on Friday. But that was not enough for the US blue chips end the week in positive territory.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended the week down 0.46 per cent, while the S&P 500 dropped 0.19 per cent for the week, witnessing a decline for the fourth straight week.

The tech-laced Nasdaq, however, broke its three-week losing streak, finishing up 0.41 per cent.

The uncertainty after Parliamentary elections over, the Government formation and doubts on economic reforms took its toll on the domestic bourses. The BSE Sensex dropped below the 5,000-mark to end the week at 4,961.57, a 26-week low.

The Sensex saw the second largest fall of 565 points on Black Monday as well as the biggest ever swing of 793 points in the history of the exchanges. However, backed by domestic institutions, the domestic market recovered smartly.

Moving to ADRs, led by Infosys Technologies, most Indian counters ended the week in positive territory. However, VSNL's ADR was the lone exception.

Infosys announced its vision for the future of outsourcing - Modular Global Sourcing - which allows an enterprise to adopt best-of-breed sourcing strategies by structuring business processes and IT systems into individual modules. The counter closed the week firm at $80.97 ($74.65). The other IT majors Wipro - at $42.37 ($38.8) - and Satyam - at $18.48 ($18.37) - closed with gains.

ICICI Bank approved the audited US GAAP accounts for the year ended March 31, 2004. Accordingly, the bank's net profit was Rs 522 crore in 2003-04 compared with a net loss of Rs 798 crore in 2002-03. ICICI Bank's net worth of Rs 9,453 crore on March 31, 2004 as per US GAAP was significantly higher than the consolidated net worth as per Indian GAAP of Rs 7,557 crore. The bank's ADR closed the week at $12.73 ($12.65).

VSNL, which announced that Tyco Telecommunications cable ship - the CS Tyco Durable - departed Chennai to commence the laying of the 3,175-km undersea cable in the Indian seabed for the international bandwidth project, closed on weak note at $5.95 ($6.26).

While the premium for Infy and Wipro widened this week to 49.54 per cent (34.06 per cent) and 27.11 per cent (14.54 per cent) respectively, there was no change on premium/discount for other counters.