Infosys Hotcake Of Portfolio Buying Binge

Heavy foreign portfolio buying pushed up prices of technology stocks led by bellwether Infosys Technologies. The buying bonanza was backed by a strong overnight Nasdaq and surge in global equities which in turn was a reaction to the strong US retail sales data for October. The data, in fact, raised hopes that the world's largest economy - the US - would recover soon.

Infosys was limit-up in the morning deals and closed 10 per cent higher at Rs 3251.90. Dealers said there were talks that government of Singapore was a big buyer in the stock. The euphoria was fuelled by talks that the company had signed up around $150 million dollar order and reports that the company has floated a new division in the US. The new division floated in the US, the first by an Indian software company, plans to tap the huge IT spend, worth billions of dollars, by governments in the US and Europe, market players said.

Technical chartists were of the view that the stock had broken through the critical resistance levels at Rs 3,100. Combined volume at the counter on both the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) and National Stock Exchange (NSE) was about 16.50 lakh shares.

Apart from Infosys, index stocks Satyam Computer Services, Silverline Technologies and NIIT were also up substantially. Satyam closed higher at Rs 177.50 up 9.7 per cent, Silverline at Rs 45.35 ended higher by 7.98 per cent and NIIT inched up 3.29 per cent to close at Rs 218 on the BSE.

Second-rung tech stocks witnessed similar euphoria despite Sonanta Software issuing a profit warning two days back. The Re 1 paid scrip of the Bangalore-based software major moved up 8.75 per cent to close at Rs 16.10.

SSI shares moved up 14.14 per cent to Rs 187.65 in late trading on BSE amidst heavy volumes. Pentamedia Graphics shot up in double digit percentage to close at Rs 47.35, up 11.94 per cent.

Tata Information Services also closed higher by 8.81 per cent to close at Rs 113.05. Zensar Technologies hit the 20 per cent upper limit on Thursday following rumours that the company's parent is planning to increase stake. The stock closed 19.93 per cent to Rs 68.90 on BSE.

It has been reported that European governments spend around $54 billion every year on information technology. The UK alone is expected to spend $7.3 billion on e-governance projects, while the US Government Electronics and Information Technology Association expects the federal government to spend about $42 billion on software and computers in 2002.

Analysts feel that the possibility of the war ending in Afghanistan and hopes of a revival in domestic economy has also fueled the Infosys counter.