Laughing It Off
The Union finance minister's announcement that he is not worried over the downgrade in India's long-term currency rating by Standard & Poor (S&P) and the Reserve Bank of India governor's reiteration that the country's gross domestic product growth forecast of 6-6.5 per cent for 2001-02 remains unchanged soothened concerns over the S&P rating.
As the domestic indices have been witnessing continuous erosion in the past few months, Wednesday's downward trend was less than expected.
Shares of individual companies which were given a negative outlook by S&P moved downward. Reliance Industries fell 1.13 per cent to Rs 325, Larsen & Toubro slipped by 1.34 per cent to Rs 213 and Tata Power dipped 1.54 per cent to Rs 131.
Lost faith
There were indications that the Golden Fund has started to sell shares of Zee Telefilms. The move is surprising given the fund's faith in Zee.
It is reported to have sold over 10 lakh shares on Tuesday and a similar amount on Wednesday. The same fund had bought the shares at Rs 1,000 per share a year back through a private placement from Zee.
Though currently the Securities and Exchange Board of India is looking into the issue, the selling, which emerged in the past two days at roughly one tenth of its acquisition cost, would definitely shock fund managers.
Switching preferences
The Cleanson Brokerage is said to have been advising its clients to switch from Dr Reddy's to Ranbaxy and Cipla.
Tuesday it sold a chunk of Dr Reddy's shares and balanced the gap with one lakh shares of Ranbaxy and around 50,000 Cipla shares.
Even the Big Bull Brokerage was seen chasing Ranbaxy on Wednesday. Market expects positive developments on the research and development front in Ranbaxy. The Savvy Fund Manager is also being touted as one of the runner.
Cassette push
Saregama seems to have become the favourite of some fund managers, sources said. Earlier known has the Gramophone Company, it has been in the limelight for the last couple of days.
The stock has gained around 34 per cent in the last three days on the back of reports that the "Sai Baba" title, which it acquired, is doing well. Saregama has reportedly sold around 1.5 lakh cassettes of "Sai Baba".
Tailpiece
Big Daddy continued its selling spree on Tuesday by offloading undisclosed number of HDFC shares, 1 lakh shares of ICICI, about 1.5 lakh shares of Balaji and another 2 lakh Rolta shares.
Though there are no tangible reasons for this decision, upsides are being used to make quick bucks to finance its restructuring and redemption pressures.
There were reports that the Asian House bought 2 lakh shares of Pentamedia Graphics, while Life Saver Fund bought 50,000 shares of Tata Tea and 32,000 shares of Castrol.