The Hindu Business Line : ACC gains on open offer talk

ASSOCIATED Cement Companies (ACC) has been buzzing on speculation that the company could come up with another open offer. The stock has appreciated by over 15 per cent in the last month of trading. The stock ended on Wednesday at Rs 438.20 on the NSE.

Traded volumes have also been high. The BSE reported a net turnover of Rs 22 crore and Rs 13.5 crore for Tuesday and Wednesday respectively.

The stock touched its 52-week high of Rs 446.90 on Tuesday. Though it moved down on profit taking, dealers say that news based triggers in the stock cannot be ruled out now.

Analysts also point out that the company is realigning many of its practices to conform to Holcim's requirements and operational efficiencies could improve.

Banking on interest rate

SEVERAL banking stocks are running up in anticipation of an upward revision of interest rates. Dr Y.V. Reddy, Governor, Reserve Bank of India, is announcing the quarterly review of the monetary policy on July 26.

Dealers say expectations are that the announcement would involve hardening of interest rates. If this happens, banks would report better quarterly performances as their income from interest earnings would go up.

Most public sector banks posted smart rallies today. State Bank of India was an actively traded stock on Wednesday. The stock touched an intra-day high of Rs 734.10 before closing at Rs 724.50. However, both HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank - leaders in the private banking space, witnessed some weakness. Both ended trade marginally lower than their opening prices.

Dull on disappointing nos

LESS-than-expected results announced by IT majors domestically and disappointing results by Yahoo and other global technology icons have led to pessimism in the IT counters, according to dealers. The BSE-IT index ended with a loss of 10 points at 2801.

Infosys Technologies shed over Rs 25 to end at Rs 2,232.75, a loss of over one per cent. TCS also ended in the red, closing at Rs 1,308.

Expectations were that mid-cap IT companies would be out of favour with investors, considering disappointing results posted by several of them, but most of these counters managed to close the day with gains.

Veena Venugopal

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