Day of records on the bourses
Mumbai: The bourses are under control of the bulls. For the second day running, stock indices of all the major stock exchanges surged past their previous best. Unlike on 3 January, volumes on 4 January were high, indicating that the rally is indeed a sign of the markets’ strength. The benchmark of the bourses, the Sensex of the Bombay Stock Exchange, rose another 115.90 points to end the day at 5491.01. The day also ended with another record -- the BSE’s market capitalisation crossed the Rs 10 lakh crore mark. It now stands at Rs 10,00,150 crore.

The S&P CNX Nifty of the National Stock Exchange ended the day with a 46.50-point increase to close at 1638.70.

There has been a mad scramble for IT stocks, with leader Infosys Technologies notching an all-time high price of Rs 16,910. Infosys has got a market cap of Rs 55,922. The other stocks that saw frenzied buying were Digital Equipment, Silverline Industries, Pentafour Software, Satyam Computer, HCL Infosystems and Aptech. As many as 26 stocks in the specified group on the BSE touched new 52-week highs of which 10 belonged to the infotech sector. For the first time, Hindustan Lever came down to third position in market cap terms, and its weightage in the Sensex had been taken over by Infosys.

Zee Telefilms topped the list of highest-traded stock on the BSE with a Rs 514-crore turnover. Market watchers said institutional interest in the market has picked up and both foreign investors and domestic institutions have become net buyers. Institutional buying was strong in Reliance Industries, MTNL, Dr Reddy’s, and L&T.
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Infosys, the record maker
Mumbai: Infosys Technologies created another history on the bourses. Its price on the Bombay Stock Exchange reached an all-time high of Rs 16.910, and this gave it a market capitalisation of Rs 55,922 crore, replacing Hindustan Lever as the stock with the second highest market cap on the BSE. Wipro leads with a market cap of Rs 69,528 crore. Hindustan Lever’s market cap is now Rs 49,733 crore. In fourth place is Zee Telefilms, with Rs 49,505 crore, and Reliance Industries follows in fifth position with Rs 25,445 crore.

Infosys also replaced Hindustan Lever in terms of weightage in the Sensex. Hindustan Lever had the highest weightage for over five years because of its large market capitalisation. Following the eight per cent hike in its market cap in just one day, Infosys has now gained a weightage of 18.29 per cent against Hindustan Lever’s, which has dropped to 16.25 per cent from 17.52 earlier.
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Infy, Sify at new highs
Mumbai: The American depository receipts of Infosys Technologies and Satyam Infoway reached new highs on the Nasdaq despite a weak opening. Infosys clocked a high $399 per ADR on 4 January, while Satyam’s ADR spurted to a new high of $236 per ADR.

Market analysts said Infosys’ market capitalisation $25 billion on the Nasdaq is way ahead of major US companies like 3Com Corporation, Apple Computer, Akzo Nobel, and Baan. Satyam Infoway has a market capitalisation of $3.5 billion.
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Special margins for high volatility
Mumbai: The Bombay Stock Exchange has imposed a special margin on 206 stocks for very high volatility on the markets. The special margin is in addition to daily margin and the additional volatility margin that a stock may attract. The BSE stated in a release that 363 stocks are attracting additional volatility margin for the settlement commencing from 3 January. The exchange has also reduced circuit filters from their normal levels in 16 cases with effect from 4 January, raising the total number of stocks under reduced circuit filters to 130. The circuit filter is reduced whenever there is an alarming price rise with low volumes.

The National Stock Exchange has, meanwhile, decided to impose an additional security-specific margin of 50 per cent on stocks that have witnessed price volatility of more than 250 per cent in the past six weeks and have low liquidity. The additional security-specific margin will be levied on 73 stocks from 5 January.
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NSE IT launches two software products
Mumbai: The wholly-owned subsidiary of the National Stock Exchange, NSE IT, has launched two software products for stock brokers. The products, NeatXS and NeatIXS, are used for order routing and Internet trading respectively. NeatXS enables a broker to manage his multiple locations through a network, while Neat IXS will help a broker to offer Internet trading to his or her clients. NeatXS is priced at Rs 4.5 lakh for a group edition, and Rs 30,000 per client for an enterprise edition. Neat IXS is priced at Rs 10 lakh.
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