Equity finds favour among mutual funds
Kolkata: Equity seems to be back in the reckoning among mutual fund investors after a long gap, something that is evident from the recent increase in corpus recorded by select players. In small but emphatic ways, diversified equity schemes managed by certain fund houses had mobilised sizeable sums of money in April and the trend is continuing this month as well. Month-end figures that have been made available suggest that a good number of them, not all of them big names, have been doing well in terms of collections. The lead has been taken by some schemes in the Franklin Templeton (FT) group, the list being headed by Franklin India Bluechip.
Back to News Review index page  

Interest perks up in banking stocks
Mumbai: The stock market continued its dismal run on Monday and the Bombay Stock Exchange's Sensitive Index (Sensex) broke the resistance level of 2,950 points. After opening on a strong note at 2,955.19 points, the Sensex touched a high of 2,965.37 points intraday. As Monday's session progressed, a build up of selling pressure in prominent index stocks such as Infosys Technologies, led to a sharp fall to an intraday low of 2,934.78 points, before the session closed for the day at 2,942.78 points, down 7.22 points.
Back to News Review index page  

PNB touches new 52-week high
Mumbai: The stock of public sector Punjab National Bank (PNB) on Monday touched a new all-time high. The new high and sharp rise in the stock price was due to active purchases from select buyers and also from some institutional investors. Dealers said the sudden spurt in the stock price was on talks that the bank is likely to return part of equity back to the government. Currently the government has 80 per cent equity stake in PNB out of the paid-up capital of Rs 265 crore. Even though the exact quantum of the return of the equity is not known, market players are speculating that government holding could come down to 51 per cent. This led to the stock rising sharply on Monday. The stock gained 18.09 per cent at Rs 146.25 on the BSE with a volume of 38.09 lakh shares and on the NSE it closed at Rs 147.80, up 19.58 per cent with a volume of 88.53 lakh shares.
Back to News Review index page  

Novartis up 12 per cent
Mumbai: The Novartis India stock on Monday saw a surge in price and volume on the Bombay Stock Exchange. The stock moved up by 12.03 per cent to close at Rs 245 against the previous close of Rs 219.40. Total traded quantity of the stock on the BSE shot up to 1.35 lakh shares from Friday's 31,004 shares. The previous highest volume in the counter this month was 43,967 shares, recorded on May 5. The stock with a face value of Rs 5, at today's closing price, is trading slightly above 10 times its expected earning per share of Rs 24 and a market cap to sales ratio of 1.5, according to Kashyap Mehta of Anagram Stockbroking.
Back to News Review index page  

Rupee firms up; gilts dull
Mumbai: The rupee ended on Monday one paise higher at 47.1700/1750 against the dollar, up from its previous close of . Demand and supplies of the dollar evenly matched, said a forex dealer in a public sector bank. "The dollar inflow was good with the supply estimated to be $100-120 million,'' the dealer added.
Back to News Review index page  

Sify ADR back in limelight
Chennai: The Sify ADR (American Depository Receipt) on the Nasdaq is again in the limelight. As on May 9, the stock's last sale was $7.70, volume 139,075 and market capitalisation over $1,000 million. Such a performance has now brought back interest among some of the top US-based research firms to analyse and rate the Sify stock. This is happening after a gap of about two years, even as the stock went through a roller-coaster ride on the Nasdaq following the dotcom bubble burst, sources said.
Information available on the Nasdaq Web site says that of the nine research analyst firms, one gave Sify above 55 per cent score, two gave above 40 per cent, two 29 per cent and another two 25 per cent.
Back to News Review index page  

Infosys contracts tumble
Mumbai: Trading remained lacklustre at the derivative segment on the NSE on Monday as the turnover dropped to about Rs 1850.45 crore as against Friday's turnover of about Rs 1910 crore. The May futures were the most active with 8541 contracts changing hands. The contract closed the day at 932.95 as against Friday's close of 934.65. The June contracts closed at 933.10 and the July futures at 933.90. All the three months' contracts ended the day at a discount to the Nifty spot close of 936. Open interest in May futures slipped by about one per cent to 17,496 contracts. The unmatched buy/sell order book of the NSE for May futures suggests more people were willing to go short as the buy/sell ratio was at 0.52.
Back to News Review index page  

Foreign investors buy bonds as Rupee gains
Mumbai: Foreign investors are putting more money into India as they seek to profit from its relatively high bond yields and pare exposure to SARS-hit Southeast Asia. Indian bonds have always offered attractive yields compared to more developed countries, but exchange rate losses caused by a depreciating rupee had discouraged foreign funds. Now the tide has turned. The rupee appreciated against the dollar in 2002 for the first time in more than a decade, by 0.55 per cent. It has gained about 1.5 per cent this year and is set to climb more, traders say. “The arbitrage between domestic and global interest rates has always been a factor,” said Sashi Krishnan, chief investment officer at Cholamandalam Asset Management. “The added comfort now is the rising rupee. So long as the unit maintains this trend, we expect flows to continue.”
Back to News Review index page