Domestic bulls hold BPCL, HPCL:
The tug of war seems to be hotting up in the two PSU refinery counters. At a time when a few foreign institutions have taken a bearish view for HPCL and BPCL, a couple of high profile Bombay brokers are busy absorbing all the sales pressed by these FIIs on these counters. These BSE members seem to have taken a bullish view after the market gave a thumbs down to these PSU oil giants. Bharat Petroleum was hammered dowm from Rs 450 to below Rs 200 to Rs 189 early thismonth. Moving in tandem, Hindustan Petroleum went down from Rs 460 to a low of Rs 180.

MTNL back on the line:
The MTNL counter, after being hammered down to Rs 150, has shot back into the limelight. Market sources say Merill Lynch is buying heavily in the counter. The fund is beleived to have picked up huge deliveries in the past few days. FIIs were responsible in pushing down the scrip by pressing heavy sales in the counter earlier. As a result, the scrip dropped from Rs 203 to a low of Rs 150. It has shot back with vengeance to Rs 164 with a sharp surge in tading volumes. The scrip attracted huge trading volumes of over 20 lakh shares in the past four trading days on the BSE.

Software paper chase continues:
Software stocks are slated to flare up further as operators, FIIs and domestic institutions flock to these stocks. Buying interest was at its peak with the prices of Pentafour Software, Satyam Computers, Wipro and Infosys moving up. Investor apettite for software continues tobe reflected in the upsurge of the prices of second line stocks like Rolta, Silverline and Digital Equipments. Digital Equipments has been on the upper circuit for the past 8 days and reported volatile trading, with the stock touching the upper circuit twice before falling to the lower circuit on the NSE. The stock finished Rs 23.55 higher or 8 per cent to freeze at Rs 318.15. The Aptech stock hit the circuit filter at Rs 817.

New love for Pentafour:
Pentafour Software witnessed hectic activity as a prominent FII is reported to have placed a buy order for 10-12 lakh shares, on behalf of Kerry Packer at Rs 710. Morgan Stanley is tipped to have sold around 2.75 lakh Pentafour in the week. A technical analyst sees strong support at Rs 805 and was expected to touch Rs 892, which it eventually did. It touched a price of Rs 894 but closed lower. Technically, the stock is not expected to move much from these levels.