Uncertainty Gains Ground

few days. As a result, optimism which was resurfacing on the street is giving way to caution.

Some players feel that the one-way run is unlikely but a process of consolidation could be setting in. Another explanation being offered for a correction at every rise is that players, who see their target price approaching, used the spurt to exit.

Reliance continues to confound.

With oil prices spurting, a key input of the petrochemical major has increased. However, the movement on the Reliance counter confounded quite a few .The scrip registered a marginal gain adding to the list of interesting trends during the past few trading sessions.

 

Infosys follows

Infosys Technologies was another counter to perplex some old players. There was a clutch of brokers on the buy side including the likes of Universal Banking, Co-tech Securities, Cross Bee and Numero Uno which together added up to a couple of lakh shares. The only important seller was the PN Brokerage and here too the amount was only 16,000 shares.

Telecom tangle

With the telecom sector truly opening up there is a perception that the going would get tougher for the seasoned guys in the game. This is probably what prompted a client of PN Brokerage to book sales to the extent of a million shares, despite which the scrip moved up.

In a street not lacking in contrarians, fresh buying re-emerged yesterday, leading to a pick up on the price front. The big buyer yesterday was Prudent Fund and the quantity is believed to be over half a million shares.

Demands of Prudence

With the markets showing a high level of peculiarity in its movement , one would have thought that funds would lack conviction to execute their intentions at one go. But this feeling of prudence is not shared by the Prudent fund if one considers the fund's activities during this week. The fund was an aggressive buyer two days back probably in the belief that a turnaround was round the corner. The buy orders included half a million shares shares of Sterlite, a lakh of Software Solutions as also two lakh shares of DSQ Software. FII activity would suggest that there is some substance for this belief but the broad market is yet to give any indication to reflect the same.

The Zee story

Somewhere down the line every story meets its moment of reckoning. The same is slowly happening in the Zee counter. The belief is that most people who had lost conviction have exited the counter. Hence, any fresh buying in the scrip would have a bullish effect. As a result, the scrip is emerging as a key counter to keep track of considering the high level of interest of some big operators and also because of the impact it could have on the liquidity front.

Tailpiece

These days fund managers are a harried lot. The market gyrations of the past few months have confounded even the brightest and the best. Several strategies are being followed, more on a trial and error basis rather than with any level of conviction in the hope of guarding their net asset values. Some unfortunate ones who are invested in illiquid stocks are trying to churn the liquid portion for extremely small returns. These fund managers are sitting on a time bomb in case the market does not recover soon and in case they face redemption pressures. In such a scenario, it was rather refreshing to come across the fund manager at the Big Bull outfit who has an extremely focussed portfolio of just around twenty five stocks. Bull market or bear market our guy is pretty comfortable.