The Hindu Business Line : Another weak week for Indian counters

WHILE the US markets rose this week on the back of positive GDP report and on better-than-expected performances from corporate majors such as DuPont, Verizon and Merck, the Indian markets suffered on account of foreign institutional investors' withdrawal.

The S&P 500 gained 1.6 per cent last week, the Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 1.8 per cent even as the tech-focussed Nasdaq rose 0.4 per cent to 2089.88.

On the other hand, the BSE's Sensex tumbled 4.75 per cent and the NSE's S&P CNX Nifty crashed 5.2 per cent.

Despite positive showing by the US markets, the Indian ADRs seemed to have followed the domestic market path. As a result, except Satyam Computer and Rediff.com, all the other ADRs closed last week on a weak note.

Amidst all, a few companies did announce better financial performance: Dr. Reddy's Laboratories announced an increase of 72 per cent rise in second-quarter profit as sales in Russia and India increased and as research costs fell;

VSNL said its second-quarter profit rose 3.3 per cent from a year earlier;

and, however, another telecom major MTNL said its Q2 profit fell 15 per cent on lower sales.

While Dr. Reddy's Lab slipped to $17.92 against the previous week close of $18.35, VSNL tumbled to $12.33 ($14.01) and MTNL to $5.6 ($6).

Among IT cos, Infosys closed weak at $67.14 ($70) and Wipro at $9.89 ($10.16) even as Satyam closed a tad better at $32.76 ($32.64).

However, Rediff.com stole the show with impressive gains; it closed the week at $17.11 ($15.12), a gain of 13.16 per cent.

While the ADRs of Infosys and Wipro saw a marginal increase in premium, others hover around the previous week levels.

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