COMMENTARY
INTERVIEWS
SPECIALS
CHAT
ARCHIVES

Overall sentiment remains firm; fertilisers, aluminium and steel down; pharma, cement, cable up; Skindia index steady at 618.78 points

The Indian global depository receipts or the GDRs declined marginally following poor demand from corporates while the BSE Sensex moved up moderately on foreign investors' support during the week ended January 15, 1999.

According to a media statement by Skindia Finance, during the week, its GDR Index fell marginally by 0.46 points and the BSE Sensex gained by 37.65 points, moving in a band of 2.64 per cent and 3.81per cent respectively.

The Skindia GDR Index ended the week on the negative territory; the average premium of the 60 GDRs moved up to 4.31 per cent on January 21 from 2.13 per cent on January 14 and the average spreads of the 37 most actively traded GDRs narrowed to 8.23 per cent on January 21 from 8.56 per cent on January 14, indicating that the overall sentiment in the GDR market remains firm.

On an average, the 60 GDRs lost by 0.46 during the week and the shares by 2.29 per cent. The major loser was the fertiliser sector, losing by 7.16 per cent followed by aluminium and steel that slided by 6.24 per cent and 2.11 per cent.

The top gainers were pharma, cement and cable sectors appreciating by 4.00 per cent, 3.19 per cent and 2.27 per cent respectively.

In shares, the top losers were aluminium, textile and fertilisers sectors which lost by 11.47 per cent, 7.33 per cent and 7.08 per cent respectively. The pharma and cement sectors were the only gainers in the shares moving by 10.33 per cent and 3.02 per cent respectively.

During the week, the Skindia GDR Index dropped by 0.07 per cent to 618.78 points on January 21 as compared to previous week's close of 619.24 points. The Skindia GDR Index price earning ratio also eased by 1.18 per cent to 25.91 from the last week's close of 26.22 while the Skindia GDR Index premium went up by 0.97 per cent to 14.37 per cent from 14.23 per cent.

During the week, there were 18 gainers, 21 losers while 21 remained unchanged out of the total of the 60 scrips.

In the corporate sector, as the third quarter results started to pour in, the markets took a beating as the investors were disappointed by these results. The important results which had a bearing on the market this week were those of Reliance and ITC whose results were close to the expectations of the markets and hence these were already discounted for.

Reliance recorded a fall in its third quarter results by 7.59 per cent to Rs 4.02 billion year-on-year. Its GDR remained unchanged at $ 6.48 while its share inched up marginally by 0.67 per cent to Rs 1.35 billion on the day of announcement. The fall has been attributed to lower global demand.

ITC declared a rise of 16.09 per cent to Rs 1.35 billion in its net profit in the third quarter year-on-year. Since these were as per the expectations, ITC's GDR fell by 5.26 per cent to $ 22.50 and the share by 3.18 per cent to Rs 807.50, after the announcement of results. The lower profits were due to the fall in the volumes of micro cigarette segment and declining exports of tobacco leaves.

Due to the fall in the international prices of aluminium, Indal's third quarter profits declined by 22.22 per cent to Rs 98 million as compared to the previous year. Its GDR depreciated by 2.38 per cent to $ 2.05 and the share by 6.28 per cent to Rs 76.10 on the announcement of the results.

UNI

Business news