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Partha Pratim Sinha
Mumbai, Aug 27: Brokerages would only be distributing sweets now, but the champagne bottle will have to wait for Monday, was how a broker summed up the mood on Dalal Street. For the second consecutive day, the two leading indices together touched their respective all-time high and the respective closings were also at record levels. With FII investment figures indicating a net inflow of Rs 89 crore for Thursday, market players are now eagerly waiting for the Sensex to cross the 5000-level mark. And technically, the market is poised to cross the 5500-mark before the new government is in place.
On Friday, the last day of trading in the current account, the BSE Sensex opened with a 29 points gap at 4875.28- a new all-time high- against its Thursday close of 4846.36. Thereafter, the index inched up to a striking distance of 4900-level at 4896.09, but closed lower at 4870.66- a net gain of 24.30 points over its previous closing. On the other hand, the S&P CNX Nifty on the NSE opened almost at Thursday's level, at1402.60, touched its all-time high at 1425.20 and closed at 1417.50 points, its all-time high closing. During the day it showed a net gain of 15 points.
Market players expect the bourses to remain firm during the coming week also. ``In case no bad news comes during the week-end, the markets will open firm on Monday also,'' says Chirag Sanghvi at Asit C Mehta Investment Intermediaries. According to Sanghvi, ITC and some of the bank stocks, like HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank and Corporation Bank, at the current level, looks good.
Arun Kejriwal of Woodstock Securities who sees activity bordering on euphoria on Monday, does not want to assign a target to the Sensex. ``We will definitely have a new index level touching the intra-day high and the closing could be lower than the day's high.''
The latest FII investment figures from Sebi show that the FIIs have brought in Rs 89 crore on Thursday and Rs 33 crore on Wednesday. Market players expect the corresponding figure for Friday to remain positive. Compared to anet outflow of Rs 285 crore during the rest of the current month, the total inflow of Rs 112 crore during the last two days has given a lot of confidence to the market players. On Thursday, the total turnover by the FIIs were at Rs 415 crore, one of the highest during the recent times.
Technically, from the present levels, the market is poised to cross the 5500-level before the new government is in place. ``The 5500-level is definitely a possibility. Had Friday's closing been at 4880 or above, even 5700-level would have been possible,'' says Neel B Dalal, a BSE member.
For Saturday's badla, market players expect the average carry forward rates to remain around the 21-22 per cent level. ``As the net demand for funds is up by around 2 per cent to Rs 1790 crore from the earlier Rs 1750 crore (after adjusting for the scrips which are in the no-delivery mode), we are expecting the badla to remain in the region of 21 to 22 per cent,'' said a city-based broker.
During the day's trading on Friday, among thepivotals, ITC and Ranbaxy attracted good buying interest. Zee Tele, on the back of its merger with Zee Multimedia, was also on the upper circuit. Hero Honda and Bata were also strong during the day. Swaraj Mazda was the other counter which also generated huge buying interest as one of the leading foreign broking houses has recommended a `buy' for the stock.
After having gone up substantially during the previous session, the cement stocks remained strong throughout the day. And the same was observed in the steel sector counters. However, except for Digital and a few of the second rung software counters, the rest were more or less subdued. Also the aluminium stocks, Hindalco and Nalco, were down, with Hindalco going below the Rs 900 mark after a long time. Smithkline Consumer, on the other hand, is believed to have given a good breakout. According to market players, there was substantial selling pressure in the SBI counter as a leading FII sold substantial chunks in the counter over the last three days. Onthe other hand, the same FII is understood to have started buying the ITC scrip.
Copyright © 1999 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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