Dumping Damper

Thursday was markedly insipid on the bourses, barring the the last forty-five minutes of trading when chunks of Infosys Technologies shares were dumped. The provocation, apparently, was an advertisement by India's most admired company seeking call centre personnel.

This led to the buzz that Infosys was entering the hobbling business. However, the company had to clarify that it was recruiting on behalf of a client.

The losses on the Wall Street and apprehensions of retarded growth data from the US also contributed to the jitters.

Changing track

Big Daddy was busy indulging in all-round selling -- a noticeable move from the institution over the past few days. According to market-watchers, the fund is probably trying to create liquidity through its own internal resources (by selling) rather than going for extensive borrowings. This perception has been further bolstered by the fact that the offloading has been across the board.

Soothing show

Zee Telefilms was the only bright spot on the bourses on Thursday as the scrip, defying all trends and logic, zoomed up by more than three per cent sustained by big-ticket buying. Oppenheimer was touted to be one of the buyers of the stock, while the Savvy Fund manager was also doing heavy shopping.

According to market observers, the new programmes on the channel, with high interactive content, has caught the fancy of not only the viewers but the investing community as well. Also some punters were keeping alive reports over the company's strategic partner in order to boost the stock.

But most fund managers are still keeping a safe distance from the stock as one fund manager said: "Any negative news, and the scrip will crash." The stock has gained around 24 per cent in the last eight odd sessions.

Cookie crumbles

The market gave the thumbs-down to the open offer price for Thomas Cook by its parent company -- C&N Touristic -- as price expectations were even higher. The scrip went down by almost 10 per cent on the Bombay Stock Exchange. Experts even expect further erosion in the scrip in the coming sessions.

The open offer for Wartsila India by Wartsila Corporation, on the other hand, saw the price of the scrip going up by 20 per cent.