Long Weekend Casts Shadow

Silverline clobbered

Silverline is being ruthlessly punished for going back on its plans to make a US acquisition as stated earlier. There is no dearth of sellers at the counter. About 8 lakh shares were dumped yesterday led by the Big Bull Fund and the Savvy fund manager. The share closed below the eight percent mark to end near the day's lows. One thing getting very clear these days is that the market is becoming very discerning and cannot be taken for granted. Non-performance or underperformance and going back on promises are no longer taken lightly. The players are showing a new level of maturity.

Sterlite under pressure

Sterlite is another counter to have got bogged down in controversy ultimately affecting the performance of the stock on the bourses. Any rise in the scrip is used as a selling opportunity. The savvy fund manager seems to be in a punishing mood and dumped a further 50,000 Sterlite shares yesterday over and above the 2 lakh sold in the previous trading session. Small Daddy also is a regular seller on the counter having sold about half a million shares in the past few trading sessions.

Telecom tangle

The MTNL stock came under selling pressure yesterday to end the day sharply lower. The stock has been under pressure ever since the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India announced lowering of rates on STD/ISD calls which has been perceived as affecting MTNL negatively. Another reason for the selling could be more external to the company, namely a reallocation and portfolio restructuring within the telecom sector with Hughes Tele.com issue hitting the market. About one million shares were dumped yesterday by a leading institution. This counter has become the favourite whipping boy of the markets and the delay in divestment of the government stake in this company is not helping matters.

Reliance up

Uncle Jam pepped up the Reliance counter after the brief lull. Uncle Jam is reported to have picked up about one million shares for one of its clients. Another aspect which has come to light is that the beta (a tool to measure volatility of a stock) of Reliance has come down after the management announced the buyback price. Perhaps this is one of the reasons for a lack of speculative interest at the counter thereby affecting volumes.

Ranbaxy, a universal dose

After a long time this counter is back in the limelight and is being favoured once again but the fanfare is missing this time. About a couple of lakh shares were picked up yesterday but more interestingly the buying was spread across several funds. Among the big names which have got into the stock are the Picket Fund, the Green Fund and the Skrodder Fund. Fortunately this time, the expectations from the stock are more realistic than before.

Crucially poised

Today will be a crucial day for the bourses ahead of a long weekend. Another factor that would impact it is the fact that the settlements on both the Calcutta Stock Exchange and the Bombay Stock Exchange would be ending today. This might put considerable strain on those traders who tend to shift positions from one exchange to other. The bottleneck created by this might put pressure on prices and the market is unlikely to look up smartly unless considerable amount of buying emerges. Short-term players need to be cautious.