Northern Nudge

There was marginal recovery on Monday after a clutch of corporates unfurled better-than-expected quarterlies.

Some players aver the bourses may witness a minor northward correction as valuations of select pivotals look attractive following the fall of the past few days.

Foreign portfolio investors and mutual funds produced a mixed bag on Monday by buying and selling at different levels.

Facelift falters

Zee Telefilms is on a tailspin. On the one hand there are several reports in newspapers linking it to King Panther and the stockmarket scam.

On the other, its attempt towards a new look, both content-wise and presentation-wise, from the first week of August, has not come as incentive enough for fund managers to buy the share even at four-year lows.

Cap-It-All is said to have jettisoned a large chunk on Monday. Even on Friday, it is believed to have sold about 7 lakh shares of the media firm.

Zee is investing in creating new content to attract audience and this spend is likely to affect the bottomline in the short term, analysts said.

Moreover, how the new content will perform is also dependent on the quality and the popularity of content.

Grapevine galore

Scuttlebutt of various hues kept streamed in on Monday. There were talks that Global Tele-Systems was planning to acquire Trigyn Technologies.

Trigyn officials have reportedly denied knowledge of any such negotiations. There were also talks that Global is laying off over 100 employees.

Indications are these layoffs are from its software and Internet group. The company, it seems, has indicated that non-performers could be shown the door.

Meanwhile, Sterlite Optical is said to have indicated that it will go ahead with a $100 million American depositary shares issue to gain the label of a global company rather than doing it just for the sake of raising money.

Yaadein nostalgia

The unflattering reviews of Yaadein, the movie produced by Mukta Arts, seems to have rattled large fund managers carrying heavy loads of the stock.

There is buzz that leading brokerage houses having a strong buy call on Mukta were invited to a special late-night screening of the film at Regal over the weekend.

Fund managers who saw the film were stated to be cringing in their seats, wanting to press the sell button.

A few went on to seek mukti from Mukta, it seems. A few more could be yearning for Enlightenment, according to a canary.