The Hindu Business Line : Indian counters recover sharply

Softening of crude prices seemed to have helped the US bourses to score handsome gains. According to Bloomberg, the wider S&P-500 index touched its 5-week high and closed with a gain of 1.6 per cent while the Dow Jones industrial average edged up 1.7 per cent even as the tech-focussed Nasdaq gained 2.1 per cent.

On the other hand, the domestic bourses started on a turbulent note with the BSE Sensex witnessing this year's biggest single-day drop of 617 points on Monday. Though the benchmarks recovered on subsequent trading days, they still closed well below the previous week close.

However, Indian ADRs listed followed the US market trend. Though most of the Indian ADRs slumped on Monday, they recovered quite sharply to end the week in positive zone. The biggest gainers among them were HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank. These counters, which witnessed sharp slide during previous week Friday in an immediate reaction to CRR hike, scored handsome gains in excess of 4 per cent last week.

Infosys Technologies, which dipped below the psychological $50-mark last week, closed with a gain of 3.14 per cent at $51.83 ahead of its financial performance announcement. The company is scheduled to announce its full-year and quarterly results on April 13 that could set the trend not only for the IT sector but also the whole market.

Mixed show

However, it was a mixed show by the other IT counters. While Satyam closed with a gain of 2.86 per cent, Wipro finished on flat note even as Patni Computers (the lone loser) dipped by 0.8 per cent. The latter, on the other hand, was the biggest gainer among the US-listed stocks in the domestic market by 6.6 per cent.

VSNL was the other biggest gainer by 3.34 per cent followed by MTNL (2.4 per cent) and Dr Reddy's Lab (1.8 per cent). Internet counters Sify and Rediff.com also gained by 2 per cent and 3.4 per cent respectively.

While there was no change in premium/discount for most of the counters, Patni Computers' premium declined quite sharply to 22.6 per cent (34.4 per cent) on the back of divergent trend it witnessed in the US and domestic markets.

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