Subdued activity in falling markets

The markets witnessed yet another dismal week, as global markets tumbled on fears of a deeper recession in the US following the ongoing financial crises.

Despite, tumbling stock prices, the fund managers continued to hold their neck high above the benchmark index. While the BSE 200 index has now slumped nearly 42 per cent since September 1, when we began Smart Portfolios, our fund managers -- Kashyap Pujara (-27.5%), Anand Agarwal (-22.8%), Sadanand Shetty (-17%) and Amar Ambani (-1.3%) -- have beaten the benchmark by nearly 14%.

The fund managers, apart from Sadanand Shetty, were quite subdued in their activity last week. Of the 15-odd transactions, which took place last week, there were only five buy orders including that of Amar Ambani’s, who has mostly sat on cash since the beginning, and the last two weeks with 100 per cent cash).

Among the transactions last week, Sadanand Shetty bought 37 shares of Bajaj Auto at Rs 459, and 18 shares of Reliance at Rs 998. Anand Agarwal bought 40 shares of HDFC Bank at Rs 990. Kashyap Pujara bought 25 shares of Grasim at Rs 1,175. Amar Ambani purchased 30 shares of Reliance at Rs 998.

The remaining 10 transactions were on the sell side, all executed by Sadanand Shetty who offloaded his holdings in Titan, MIC Electronics and Bartronics.

At the end of the week, Kashyap Puajara’s portfolio is now valued at Rs 7.25 lakh, including Rs 4.01 lakh in cash, Sadanand Shetty (Rs 8.30 lakh, including Rs 5.69 lakh cash), Anand Agarwal (Rs 7.72 lakh, including Rs 4.74 lakh cash) and finally Amar Ambani (Rs 9.87 lakh, including Rs 9.57 lakh cash).