The Hindu Business Line : Markets slip further; Cairn listing disappoints

Losses on Sensex and Nifty continued for the fourth day on the trot on Tuesday, with the former and latter slipping by 86 points and 22 points, respectively. Unlike Monday, when the small-cap index put up a semblance of resistance, Tuesday's losses were sustained across market cap categories.

While such a move is normally associated with poor market breadth, advances to declines, surprisingly, was only marginally in favour of the latter in the ratio of 11:10. The big event of the day was the disappointing listing of Cairn Energy.

Markets opened on mixed cues from Asian market, with strength in Japan being offset by weakness in Hong Kong. Sensex opened in the green in morning trades and, in the first hour of trade, had gained close to 100 points over its close on Monday. It gradually started losing ground thereafter and slipped into the red in afternoon trades. In the homestretch to its closing Sensex was off its previous day's close by over 150 points, before marginally recouping some of those losses.

Index stocks

Leading the pack in terms of losses was Satyam Computer that shed 4 per cent and was responsible in dragging down Sensex by 18 points. State Bank of India was another prominent loser, even as its Chairman said that liquidity conditions were getting tight. Reliance Communication shed 3 per cent; the stock appeared to be reacting to a report put out by a leading brokerage house that had assigned an underweight rating on the stock. Infosys, due to unveil its earnings card on Thursday, was also weak.

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On the positive side, stocks such as ICICI Bank, ONGC, Gujarat Ambuja, Reliance, Grasim and Wipro were a few stocks that ended higher.

Cairn let's down

There was a lot of buzz surrounding the listing of Cairn Energy but it turned out to be a case of flattering to deceive. Even before the listing, there were views expressed by a section of the street that the stock was priced stiffly, which was manifest in the retail portion being undersubscribed. The stock opened below its offer price of Rs 160 and hit a low of Rs 128, before staging a rebound to finish at Rs 137.5.

Sizzling stocks

Pyramid Saimira, the new kid on the block, had a red-hot outing on Tuesday, with the stock hitting the 20 per cent upper limit to remain frozen at Rs 206.

A cooling off in the price of crude appeared to have a salutary effect on airline stocks; Deccan Aviation, Jet Airways and Spicejet all ended the day in positive territory.

The demerged entities of what was formerly GE Shipping had a good day at the office. While the shipping arm gained about 2 per cent, the offshore arm moved up smartly by over 12 per cent.

Other gainers/losers

Other stocks that posted gains included Zandu Pharma, BF Utilities, Atlanta, Sesa Goa, Sasken Communication, Monsanto, Bharat Earth Movers, Kansai Nerolac Paints and Nahar Spinning Mills.

A few stocks that ended on the losing side were Divi's Laboratories, Texmaco, BL Kashyap, Aventis Pharma, Sun TV, Lakshmi Mills, Suzlon Energy and Madras Cements.