According to marketmen, UTI sold heavily at the counter on Tuesday but at the same time, it was a buyer at another aluminium manufacturer counter, Nalco. Nalco faced production problems in fiscal 1999 but has now stabilised output. The current fiscal is expected to be good for Nalco on account of higher production and aluminium prices. As for Hindalco, price hikes on downstream products are not always synchronous with hikes in ingot prices.

Moreover, Nalco's higher proportion of ingots at 90 per cent compared to 50 per cent of Hindalco gives it more room to hike prices. Nalco would also benefit from the higher realisations on its alumina output, which is expected to be higher at around 450,000 tonnes (after internal consumption).

LME aluminium cash prices have recovered strongly from touching lows towards the end of last month. The aluminium prices which wereruling at US $ 1239 per tonne on May 28 have bounced back to US $ 1350 per tonne. During fiscal 1999 the prices ruled at an average price of $1292 per tonne while for fiscal 1998 this was $1567 per tonne.

Federal Bank takes a beating on bourses

Thanks to a almost 95 per cent plunge in net profit for fiscal 1999, Federal Bank has taken a beating on the bourses. The stock has already shed almost 6 per cent in the past four trading sessions from Rs 37.75 to Rs 35.5 and is likely to fall further.

The largest private sector bank has been bearing the brunt of high NPAs and this has reflected in the performance of the bank for fiscal 1998-99. Net profit dipped to just Rs 2.53 crore against Rs 50.3 crore in the previous fiscal. The fall in net profit is mainly because of higher provisions for doubtful assets.

The rise in NPAs is due to a recession in steel, textiles, real estate and non performance of NBFCs. Besides, the bank has been hit by the slowdown in the industrial activity and has posted anoperating profit of Rs 49.38 crore. During the year, business volumes have risen by Rs 665 crore to Rs 11,010 crore. Deposits rose by Rs 358 crore to Rs 6782 crore and advances increased by Rs 307 crore to Rs 4228 crore. The bank has introduced 17 new loan products during the year and of which, 16 are targeted at retail customers. The bank has a net worth of Rs 323 crore and has a bookvalue of Rs 148.59.

Pentafour zooms on fresh orders

With the infotech stocks again becoming punters favourite, Pentafour Software has in last six trading sessions has moved from Rs 940 to Rs 1140. The company has bagged US $ 12 million contract from Century Media Inc. entafour's facilities in both India and the US will now be involved in executing 3-D animation work for the forthcoming Hollywood feature film `Sandman'. Marketmen expect the company to bag more such orders in future.

The scrip is trading at a PE of 18.9 as against an industry PE of 48. There is a lot of potential for the scrip to move up. The stockcan witness 20-30 per cent appreciation once the first quarter results are out.