Leading Operators Lock Horns

Even as players continue to be baffled by the fluctuating stock indices, there is a feeling among a section of seasoned brokers that two leading operators seemed to be locked in a grim battle. On Wednesday, Infosys appeared to have been the battleground. Three foreign funds are reported to have booked profits to the tune of over 80,000 shares on the same day.

Leading players feel that this is too much of a coincidence to digest. One theory doing the rounds is that the fund managers were convinced into booking profits by one of the leading operators. The sales were timed so as to cause inconvenience to a second operator who is holding speculative positions at the counter.

 

This operator seems to have incurred the wrath of the first operator by heavily going short at the ITC counter even as the latter was making representations to various fund managers asking them to buy the stock.

As if to support the theory, players point out that the battle has now shifted to the Zee counter, a counter favoured by the second operator.

Yesterday, a fund booked profits at the counter to the tune of over 2.5 lakh shares causing the scrip to tumble to the lower end of the circuit filter during intra-day trading.

In late evening kerb deals, the scrip was quoted nearly Rs 6-8 lower than the official closing price on the BSE and NSE.

Checking out

A leading Asian fund, apparently in a tearing hurry to catch the next flight out of India, is reported to have dumped a little over 1.25 lakh shares of the EIH scrip on Wednesday.

The same fund is reported top have dumped 8 lakh shares of the Coates Viyella scrip on the same. A leading domestic fund, which had been a seller at the counter at higher levels a few months ago, is reported to have partially absorbed the sales at the counter. Other scrips sold in huge quantities on Wednesday by various funds included ACC (30,000), SBI (around 3 lakh), ICICI (3 lakh), Corporation Bank (85,000), BoB (1.1 lakh), HPCL (40,000) and BPCL (70,000).

An `FII', which operates through local brokerages, is reported to have purchased around 8 lakh shares of the Reliance scrip on Wednesday. However, there are indications that supply will continue to be unabated over the next few trading sessions.

On the buying side, a foreign fund is reported to have made purchases of around 3-4 lakh shares at the MTNL counter on Wednesday.

Other token purchases in the range of 20-30,000 shares by foreign funds included the Zee Telefilms and Dr Reddy's scrips.

Yesterday, a leading domestic fund is reported to have gone fishing at the Telco counter though the numbers are awaited. The same fund was reported to have been making purchases at some of the pharma counters, notably, SmithKline Pharma. One of the leading US-based funds is reported to be accumulating the HCL Infotech stock. During the past two trading sessions, this fund is reported to have picked up close to 2 lakh shares at this counter.

The Bhel counter seems to be back in demand. It may be recalled that a sub-account of a leading US-based fund was busy emptying its coffers.

At that point a leading operator had picked up over 12 lakh shares which were later placed with another foreign fund. Thereafter this operator has now turned bullish at this counter and is reported to be holding a good chunk of this stock. This could explain why the stock is holding firm in these uncertain markets also. Yesterday, the stock moved up to close at Rs 220 at the BSE on hopes that the operator would not leave this stock to the same fate as that of ITC.