Business Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Saturday, Feb 24, 2007
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Business Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Saturday, Feb 24, 2007 ePaper |
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Stock Markets Markets - Stock Markets Columns - Sensor Aarati Krishnan
Pointers Gujarat Gas announced its earnings numbers and a 5:1 stock split after close of market hours. FIIs were marginal net sellers on Thursday after making net purchases in the earlier part of the week.
Thursday's decline in stock prices snowballed into a full-fledged bloodbath on Friday as a wave of profit-taking across the bellwethers dragged down both the benchmark indices. Nervousness about proposals in the forthcoming budget to curb inflation, weighed on cement stocks. Newly listed stocks caved in on reports of regulatory action against promoters in respect of a few recent IPOs. While the BSE Sensex closed the day with a 2.8 per cent decline, the S&P CNX Nifty lost 2.5 per cent during the session. Market breadth was negative with declines outnumbering advances by 9 to 1 on the NSE. Contrary to usual trends, mid-cap indices held up better than the large-caps with both the BSE Midcap index and the CNX Midcap registering a lower fall than the large-cap indices. Small-cap stocks, on the other hand, took a beating, with the BSE Smallcap index closing with a 3.7 per cent decline. Banking and FMCG stocks bore the brunt of profit-booking, while the metal, oil and gas and the capital goods indices fared relatively better.
Index movers
Bellwether stocks in the telecom sector that have been at the forefront of the recent rally were the worst hit by profit-taking. Within the Sensex basket, ICICI Bank, Bharti Airtel, ITC, and Infosys were instrumental in dragging down the index, while Tata Steel, Reliance Industries and BHEL were among the ones that managed to contain declines. Frontline cement stocks such as Grasim and ACC witnessed intense profit-taking on fears that the forthcoming budget could contain measures to tackle the sustained increase in cement prices. The ITC stock too shed substantial value on expectations of higher excise duties in the budget.
New listings drubbed
Action by the regulator banning the promoters of Atlanta Ltd from trading in the stock contributed to nervousness towards a slew of newly listed companies. While the Atlanta stock shed a whopping 10 per cent during the day's trading, other recently listed stocks such as Cambridge Technology (down 15 per cent), Redington (down 12 per cent), Cinemax (down 12 per cent) and Pochiraju Industries (down 11 per cent) were also engulfed by a wave of selling. Among the recent debutantes, Akruti Nirman (2 per cent up) and House of Pearl Fashions (4 per cent up) managed to register gains during the session. Power Finance Corporation managed a reasonable debut despite the adverse turn of events, closing the day at Rs 111, against its offer price of Rs 85. FirstSource Solutions, another recently listed stock, held its ground.
Mid-cap action
Select stocks in the mid-cap space, which managed to register gains during the day were BAG Films (up 5 per cent), SSI (up 5 per cent), GMDC (up 4 per cent) and GAIL (up 2 per cent). Mid-cap IT stocks such as 3i Infotech and Polaris lost significant value. But Patni Computer proved an exception to this trend as the stock gained 3 per cent. Real estate stocks such as BL Kashyap led the losers list, while Sundaram Clayton and India Infoline were also among prominent losers.
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