The Hindu Business Line : Indian counters end on firm note

THE US markets ended last week on a positive territory albeit with low volumes. The gains were despite the Fed Chairman, Mr Alan Greenspan's statement that the Fed would raise interest rates more aggressively, if necessary, than had been expected.

For the week, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 1.6 per cent, the S&P 500 1.2 per cent and the Nasdaq 1.1 per cent. This was the Dow and the S&P 500's third weekly gain in a row and the Nasdaq's second weekly gain in three.

Nothing seemed to be working in favour of Indian bourses. Reports that the Government was likely to cut Customs duties on crude oil and petroleum products, slowdown in foreign institutional investor activity and lack of any positive developments weakened the market sentiment.

Even the decision of TCS to go ahead with its long-awaited initial public offering too triggered selling in the new economy stocks as investors preferred to pull out funds from technology majors to subscribe to the issue.

On the ADR front, most of the counters closed the week on a positive territory. The major gainer was Infosys, which closed the week at $84.52 against the previous week's close of $81.75.

Wipro also closed higher at $44.27 ($42.77). Satyam Computer, however, ended on a weak note at $18.25 ($19.18). Wipro, meanwhile, announced that its board has approved the bonus issue (ratio of 2:1).

Dr Reddy's Laboratories announced that the US Food and Drug Administration has issued final approval for the company's abbreviated new drug application for Ciprofloxacin tablets of 100 mg, 250 mg, 500 mg and 750 mg dosages.

The company is eligible for 180 days of market exclusivity for the 100 mg strength. However, the ADR closed the week in negative territory at $18.85 ($19).

It may be mentioned that the DRL's announcement came on June 11 while the US markets were closed on that day.

MTNL also closed higher at $6.75 ($6.27) on reports that the company had got its board approval to bid for the Rwanda telecommunications company that is being sold by that country's Government. On the premium/discount front, the deviations were not significant.

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