With the broader market tumbling 24 per cent, were there any gainers at all in 2011? There were. In fact, some stocks remained supremely immune to the market mayhem.

If investors had been prescient enough, they could have picked Amtek India, which more than doubled its stock price in a year or Page Industries and Tata Coffee that were up 60 per cent. About one in every 10 stocks in the CNX 500 universe delivered gains to investors this year.

FMCGs preferred

Running through the gainers list throws up three common themes. One was the good performance from FMCG stocks, which delivered a 14 per cent gain (BSE FMCG index). The resilient earnings of FMCG companies, combined with their solid cash coffers and high return ratios, saw investors making a beeline for these ‘defensive' bets.

This also resulted in such stocks enjoying a much higher premium, with the BSE FMCG index seeing its PE shoot up to 31 times by year-end.

The preference for this theme also saw investors flock to some new consumer plays — tobacco stocks like ITC, Godfrey Phillips, pizza maker Jubilant FoodWorks and innerwear player Page Industries.

Open offer/delisting

The second theme centred around stocks that were candidates for delisting, open offers or buyback offers. Carol Info Services and Alfa Laval made delisting offers during the year while CRISIL made a buyback. UTV Software, Amtek India and Bombay Rayon saw open offers being made for their publicly held shares.

Another key reason for some stocks making exceptional gains this year was their low floating stock, notes Mr G. Chokkalingam, CIO, Centrum Wealth Management.

As institutional investors aggressively accumulated defensive bets, stocks with limited public holdings saw disproportionate increases in price. Gujarat Fluorochem, Alfa Laval and Blue Dart Express feature low non-promoter holdings.

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