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

Stocks

• Quotes
• SE Diary
• Scoreboard
• Open-End Mutual Fund

Port Info

• Ships in Ports
  
  

Archives

• Yesterday
• Datewise
• Resources

Group Sites

• The Hindu
• Business Line
• The Sportstar
• Frontline
• The Hindu eBooks
• The Hindu Images

AFTER a long time the stock of chemical company India Glycol gained despite a broad-base selling in the market.

Dealers said the interest in the stock is on account of talk of an increase in the price of mono-ethylene glycol (MEG) - the main product of the company.

Dealers said the hike in the MEG price is expected on the back of rise in various petrochemical prices. MEG is a raw material for manufacturing various petrochemicals.

However, the exact quantum of price hike in MEG was not being talked in the market.

On Thursday, the stock gained 9.33 per cent at Rs 146.45 on the BSE with volumes of 19.04 lakh shares.

Crude shock

Rising international crude prices appear to be worrying stock market players. The concern is even more for PSU oil companies except ONGC.

Dealers said the concern for PSU oil companies is due to their inability to hike the retail prices for various petroleum products and this is leading to some selling in oil counters. The talk is that with rise of every dollar for crude, the profitability of the oil PSUs would be affected largely.

In the current fiscal, their profits have already been affected due to this. Even for companies such as GAIL, the profitability would be affected as it bears the subsidy burden along with other oil companies.

However, the exception is ONGC, which would not be affected much as the most of the loss due to subsidy burden would be offset by rise in crude prices. Dealers said this was the main factor for stock of ONGC to remain in green on Thursday. The ONGC stock gained 0.58 per cent at Rs 912.85.

At close, IOC stock was down 1.72 per cent at Rs 468 on the BSE, BPCL closed at Rs 386.95, down 1.5 per cent. Other stocks in the losers list included HPCL (down 2.36 per cent at Rs 331.35), GAIL (down 2.32 per cent at Rs 231.40) and IBP (down 0.88 per cent at Rs 560).

Margin calls dampen sentiment

WITH financial year coming to end, several market players are being asked by their brokers to offload their positions built on margin funding. Dealers said the fall in the stock prices on Thursday was mainly due to it.

The talk is that several broking firms, which have been providing its clients funding facility, have stopped it this week due to the financial year coming to end. Dealers said the broking house would start this facility from next month.

Due to this, there was heavy selling in several mid- and small-cap stocks along with large cap stocks on Thursday.

The talk is that this is the first stage of selling and further selling could come especially in stocks that have weak fundamentals in the next few days due to further margin calls being triggered.

Virendra Verma

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
FMCG funds back in favour as scrips make gains

Copyright © 2005, 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