Fluctuations Keep Brows Arched

The general well-being of the bourses continues to be a cause of worry in the medium term due to the wide volatility in intra-day trading.

The Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) Sensex did clock a late surge due to fag-end fund buying, but reading anything more into it could be erroneous.

The fact that volatility is here to stay is an accepted truth of New Age Investing, with Nasdaq being a testimony to this.

Fluctuations driven by short-term horizons of momentum traders remain the dominant force on the bourses, with even long term investors getting highly influenced by the swings.

Cement woes

 

The Grasim scrip seems to have got itself out of the grasp of sellers if yesterday's scrip movement is anything to go by. Among the prominent sellers at this counter during the just concluded settlement was Co-Tech Securities.

The broking house unloaded 3,00,000 shares providing a strong momentum to the downward spiral at this counter. Grasim closed marginally higher yesterday, though the drought continues to play spoilsport with one of its main products, namely cement.

With price realisation per bag coming down everything does not seem hunky dory with the cement sector. A reflection of this phenomenon was Larsen & Toubro crossing its 52-week low during intra-day trading yesterday.

Zee surges

Was it results or a late bout of aggressive buying that saw the dramatic spurt yesterday in Zee Telefilms? What could be confirmed was that the earlier bout of selling was led by the King Kong Bank brokerage, which jettisoned 6,50,000 shares on behalf of one of its prominent offshore clients. The surge at this counter in spite of a large amount of institutional selling indicates the presence of a strong buyer. Late confirmation reveals that the buyer is the Big Bull Brokerage.

Big Bull is believed to have executed buy orders to the extent of 6,00,000 Zee Telefilms shares.

Bargain hunting

With software stocks available at reasonable levels, bargain hunting has resurfaced in this sector. Jordan's client, who has a high level of liking for software, decided to pick up 50,000 shares of Satyam Computer, convinced that this was a safe time to enter.

DSQ Software, which witnessed a big institutional sales on the first day of the current settlement, resurfaced on the buy list of a big institutional investor. The Asian Brokerage picked up 2,00,000 shares of the company.

Pushing Telco

The PN Brokerage believes that the benefits accruing to Telco from entering into a strategic alliance for its car business are compelling. The research house believes that the consolidation trend been witnessed in the industry in addition to the intense competition in the global auto industry and the shorter product cycles would spur Telco to seriously consider such an option.

In this age of volatility, the research house has been advising its clients

for the past two months to be patient to reap the benefits of such an event. Its rationale? The downside on the core business is limited and most of the bad news is there in the price.

Outguessing Fed

The guessing game among market participants of late is, how much will the US Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan hike interest rates by: 25 basis points, 50 basis points, or God forbid, even 1.00 percent?