The market is not expecting any substantial improvement in earnings in the last quarter and as a result, the scrips have been hammered. In the past two months, the maximum erosion in share price has been at the Tata Hydro counter at 43 per cent. The scrip has dropped from its January high of Rs 82 to the current level of Rs 47. Similarly, Tata Chemical's scrip has been hammered from a high of Rs 115 in January to a low of Rs 65. The scrip has now recovered marginally to Rs 70.8.

Expectations of a windfall from the sale of Tisco's stake in Tata Timken toTimken and transfer of cement division to Lafarge drove Tisco's stock northward in January from a low of Rs 72 to Rs 133. The scrip has now dropped back to Rs 100.

Telco, which was riding high on the launch of its small car, `Indica', seems to have been given the thumbs down by the market. ``The hype created ahead of the launch of the car has temporarily died down. The market has realised that the car launch would not help company come out of the red at least in 1998-99,'' says an analyst with a foreign brokerage. The net loss for the first three quarters has already peaked at Rs 76 crore on a turnover of around Rs 4300 crore. The company is likely to stay in red for a few quarters of fiscal 1999-2000 as well.

Telco posted a net loss of Rs 54.47 crore for the six-month period-ended September 1998, as compared to a profit of Rs 213.93 crore for the corresponding period in the previous year. The company's net sales and income from operations at Rs 2,713.8 crore was 42 per cent lower than that of thecorresponding period of the previous year. The company's overall sales volume for the first-half fell to 53,224 vehicles from 83,363 in the corresponding period of 1997-98, a drop of 36 per cent. The company's sale of vehicles in the six months in the domestic market was down 37 per cent at 48,572 vehicles. Exports for the period was down by 26 per cent at 4,652 vehicles.

Telco's scrip, at the time of the launch of its much awaited car, had zoomed from a low of Rs 93 in October 1998 to a high of Rs 228 in January this year. Since then, the scrip has lost substantial value and declined by 27 per cent to Rs 166.

Tisco's profitability too has been under pressure. Tisco reported a 62.7 per cent drop in net profit to Rs 16 crore in the corresponding period of 1998. Net profit for the nine-month period ended December 1998 at Rs 113 crore was down 48 per cent compared to Rs 219 crore reported in the first three quarters of 1997-98. Turnover was marginally higher at Rs 1,596 crore against Rs 1,524 crore in theprevious year. The company has attributed the drop in profits to the decline in net realisations.