Matrix Labs scales year high
Kolkata: The Matrix Laboratories stock on Monday touched a new 52-week high to close at Rs 993.25, up 0.7 per cent on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE). The scrip scaled an intra-day high of Rs 1,005.75, but could not sustain it till the end. The stock has moved up from Rs 929.25 in the last four trading sessions. Its 52-week low is Rs 129. The stock recorded a traded quantity of 55,741 (6,667) on the BSE. On Monday's closing price, it has traded at 8.1 times its trailing fourth-quarter earnings per share. According to brokers and dealers, of late the stock has been a star performer on the BSE.

The current rise, according to them, can be traced to withdrawal of a lawsuit related to patent infringement and forgery against the company in the UK for its blockbuster drug, citalopram. Matrix supplies active pharmaceutical ingredients to Lagap Pharmaceuticals, a unit of Novartis, to market citalopram in the UK. The company has adopted a de-risking model for its business operations by which it will be able to shed its dependence on citalopram. In the last fiscal, 50 per cent of the total revenue of Rs 417 crore came from the drug. Under the ambitious new model pursued by it, no single product would be allowed to contribute more 10 per cent of the total turnover. Last month, Matrix had announced that it has embarked on a plan to achieve Rs 1,000 crore turnover by 2006.
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Profit-booking snaps rally; Sensex down 78
Mumbai: After fuelling rallies in a wide range of stocks over most of the past week, investors stopped to book profits today pulling down benchmark indices. Analysts dubbed the steep fall in the BSE Sensex and the NSE Nifty indices as "expected correction", but were divided whether the indices would head north or south tomorrow. Large-scale unwinding of long positions in the futures market also appears to have helped the slide. The BSE Sensex fell 1.6 per cent or 78.86 points to close the day at 4851.67 and the S&P CNX Nifty of NSE closed 1.7 per cent lower at 1542.70. Overall trading volumes on both the exchanges were fairly low compared to those in the past week. Profit-booking was seen in technology, steel, auto, pharma and banking stocks.

Dealers said stocks such as Tata Motors, Tata Steel, Reliance, Ranbaxy and SBI, the so-called momentum stocks, were ruling weak today on account of the selling. According to a technical analyst with a domestic brokerage firm, the underlying sentiment is still bullish and the markets would bounce back, perhaps in the next session itself. He believes the Sensex would cross the 5,000-mark in a couple of days. Foreign institutional investors appeared to have kept away from the market on Monday. Domestic mutual funds sold heavily today. "Usually in a falling market as today's, we see FIIs buying towards the end of the day at lower levels. However, Monday afternoon appeared rather quiet," said a dealer. FIIs have brought in more than a billion dollars in the first fortnight of October, perhaps an all-time record for the country. Last Friday, they poured in another $116 million, taking the total inflows this year past the $5-billion mark.
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Sundram Fasteners mulls stock split
Chennai: Sundram Fasteners Ltd's board will meet on October 29, to consider splitting of existing equity shares of Rs 10 each. The board will also consider a proposal to merge TVS Autolec with the company. "What the shares would be split into is something that will be decided by the board," company's officials told on Monday. The move to merge TVS Autolec, a subsidiary company which manufactures water pumps for automobiles, is aimed at increasing the size of the company's balance sheet, they said. Last year, TVS Autolec achieved a turnover of Rs 107.60 crore and made a net profit of Rs 1.97 crore. Turnover was higher over the previous year by 8.75 per cent, while the net profit had increased over 10-fold. As at March 31, 2003, TVS Autolec had capital and reserves of Rs 30.02 crore.
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Deutsche Mutual eyes portfolio service
Kolkata: Deutsche Mutual Fund will soon offer portfolio management services as part of its plan to cater to the bulge-bracket segment. The fund, which currently manages about Rs 2,280 crore, has identified what it feels is a "strong demand" for a portfolio management scheme (PMS), one that will meet the requirements of high networth individuals. "The demand for PMS is growing in this country. For us, entering this area makes sense as it will be an extension of what we already do," Sandeep Dasgupta, CEO of Deutsche Asset Management, said. The MF, which will soon complete its first year of operations, runs an equity and several debt funds in India. PMS as an investment model will succeed because of its inherent flexibility.

Clients can have plans that are structured especially for them, complete with investments in such relatively new options as derivatives, it is pointed out. The fund, Dasgupta stated, is also working on a couple of fresh proposals that may be introduced in course of time. While details are not available at this stage, the MF is of the belief that a large section of the market will be interested in securing regular income from relatively safe investment avenues. Among the options that provide regular income to investors are schemes that are widely branded as MIPs, a name that has been popularised in recent years by the likes of Unit Trust of India. The average MIP is predominantly invested in debt but is free to make limited allocations to equity, mostly subject to a ceiling of 10-20 per cent. The latter is aimed at enhancing the performance of the scheme that is otherwise bound by returns from fixed-income securities.
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Rupee closes steady; bond volumes surge
Mumbai: The rupee on Monday closed at similar levels to that of Friday's after dips intra-day. The domestic currency ended the day at 45.35/36 against the dollar after dropping to 45.43 on dollar demand and lower supplies.
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