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K.S. Badri Narayanan

CLIMBING crude oil prices (to a record level), and a bleak Government data on job growth grounded the US markets to its lowest levels in 2004.

The S&P 500 fell 3.4 per cent to 1063.97; according to Bloomberg this was the biggest weekly drop since September 26, 2003. The benchmark is at its lowest since December 10 and is down 4.3 per cent this year.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 3.2 per cent to 9815.33 and the tech-laced Nasdaq Composite Index lost 5.9 per cent to 1776.89, its steepest weekly decline in more than three months.

However, the domestic markets ended the week a shade higher. In fact, the BSE Sensex ended at a 13-week despite oil price worries. Unexpected higher inflation rates, however, put pressure on the benchmarks, which pared their gains on Friday when the inflation numbers were out. With the US markets under tremendous bear pressure, none of the Indian ADRs closed last week on positive note. Even the premium of all the ADRs witnessed a sharp fall.

Infotech counters - Infosys Technologies, Wipro and Satyam - were the major losers as these companies largely depend on US markets. Infosys closed at $46.53 against the previous week close of $50.15, Wipro at $15.25 ($15.51) and Satyam at $18.25 ($19.63).

MTNL's announcement that it has set aside Rs 1,000 crore to buy overseas companies failed to lift the counter to positive territory. The ADR closed lower at $6.57 ($6.83).

Sify registered its new 52-week low at $4.19 before settling for the week at $4.2 ($4.79). The other Internet counter Rediff.com closed a tad weak at $6.08 ($6.7).

On the premium front, Infy saw a drop of over eight percentage points at 41.35 per cent (49.99 per cent) while Satyam's premium fell to 22.85 per cent (34.54 per cent).

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