But there is no feeling of agony among players either. The misery now seems to have given way to indifference as players switch on their dealing screens expecting the market to crash by another 100 points.

So what's new, you might ask. Well, stale as it might read, not reporting the news does not help things either.

Close to a million shares of Satyam Computer and a similar quantum of Zee Telefilms are reported to have been dumped on Wednesday.

More than anything else, it is a classic case of herd mentality that is taking a toll on these scrips. If a big player starts selling out in a big way, the smaller ones with an exposure to the counter has to sit and watch as his NAV erodes. It is difficult to believe that nobody was aware of Sify's losses before the announcement of the second-quarter numbers.

Apart from the Savvy Fund Manager, Singapoori Sarkar is reported to have pressed sales at the counter on Wednesday. It is going to be a tough upward journey for Satyam from these levels, or so it looks like.

The outstanding position at the counter across the three major exchanges put together is in the region of one crore shares. With no fresh buyers on the horizon, fund managers who have been sellers at the counters will be in a hurry to take exposure anew.

In the case of Zee Telefilms, it is the T No Prize Fund who is reported to be causing mayhem.

Stubborn speculators
On a day when some of the biggest names in the software sector were running for cover, the Pentamedia scrip did manage to hold ground. High volumes now seem to have become a regular feature for the counter which clocked a figure of over 1.5 crore shares on both exchanges combined. Surprising, for a scrip that has not been going anywhere for some time now. Well, is it a case of accumulation at lower levels or is it somebody offloading his holding to the unsuspecting public?

The contrarian
This is one brokerage that is not easily convinced by big names. It loves being a contrarian even when the odds are heavily stacked against it. We are talking about First Global Securities. Just to cite an example, it had put a sell-call on Infosys and HLL a couple of years back, only to watch these scrips appreciate more than four fold from those levels.

But this time round, its call on the market has been bang on target. Since the past six months, the brokerage had been shouting from rooftops that the Sensex would test the 3,500 levels. It stuck to its guns all through the brief technical rallies and has finally been proved right. In a style typical of its contrarian nature, the house is upbeat on NIIT and Zee, stocks that it has always been pessimistic about. Also figuring on its list of dark horses is Pentamedia while one-time favourites HFCL and Global are right at the bottom.

Santosh Nair
(e-mail: santoshnair@myiris.com)