Mumbai, Nov 19: It's bad news for those who are celebrating "The End" of the "Infotech Story," but at the same time it is cheerful to hear something that would benefit numerous small Indian investors. A leading global institutional investor and an active FII in the domestic market has predicted commencement of long bull phase beginning by the year-end or early 2001, and expected to take the benchmark Sensex to 8500-points mark. Credit Lyonnais Securities Asia (CLSA), headquarted in Hongkong, has made out such a prediction in its research report.CLSA in it's "Market Watch: India Report," issued recently said that the Sensex has completed its bear phase by declining from 6151 points in February 2000 to 3491 points in October 2000. CLSA research team is very bullish on the performance of Asian continent, and particularly on India sub-continent. The FII has stated that infotech and fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) sectors would emerge as strong investment avenues in coming days.
FIIs, including CLSS, were active buyers in domestic markets with net FII buying surpassing Rs 1,200-crore mark in the fist half of the current month.
As a result of this, Sensex moved up from 3789 on November 1 to cross 4000-mark in the first ten days of trading, the report said. "With the Sensex languishing at the 3870 level reaching 8500 points mark may seem unattainable. But the potential of appreciation in IT and FMCG sector and some fresh buying spree in select old economy stocks particularly cement and infrastructure sector could change the scenario," the report added.
FIIs have been accumulating Infosys, HLL and Reliance at low levels. They have accumulated Infosys stocks at below Rs 6,500 level, HLL at level below Rs 180 and Reliance at level below Rs 320, the report added.
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