February 5: The market behaviour is indeed exciting! It was pointed out that the Sensex will have to cross the hurdle at 3400. And look what happened. It opened at around the peg level mentioned earlier; it opened at 3359.24. It moved up but stopped 5 points short of 3400. The high for the day was 3394.93. Then came the surprise of all.The market slid down after 2 pm. The Sensex came down sharply to post a low of 3312.01. At the closing minutes of the trading session, it gathered a few points up to close at 3319.19. Sensex lost 35 points, accounting for 1 per cent.
It was pointed out that the scope for the market to go down was limited. And when it did go down, just take a look at the contradictions. The heavy weight HLL actually posted a gain of 2.14 per cent with volumes shooting to 367098 shares from the 170856 shares posted the previous day. And in the process the scrip posted a high of Rs 1418, opening at Rs 1366. Even at closing it was strong at 1393. That is no small performance. It also indicatesinterested buying. We just do not know who entered the scrip in such a big way.
The BHEL counter was even more electrifying. The volume traded shot up to 728800 shares as against only 231200 shares the previous day! And for all that the scrip posted a Re 0.25 gain. Surely some select pickings are going around in the market. So how did the Sensex lose 35 points. Surprisingly the culprits were Reliance Industries and SBI. SAIL joined in to deliver another blow with a 9.09 per cent loss!
Reliance lost a solid 2.53 per cent of its value and SBI another 2.45 per cent. On the other hand Bajaj Auto had perhaps no room to move down further and posted a nominal 0.16 percent gain. In many of the remaining counters there were mixed performances. But one could say that the trend was weak all around.
Wednesday's market behaviour is rather unusual. The pick up in HLL, BHEL, HPCL show that investment interest is strong. This is contrasted by lukewarm behaviour in quite a few other second rank scrips like M&M, L&T andothers. The indicators can give only a limited guidance at this complex juncture.
For the Sensex the short term stochastic indicator has not signalled a sell. It will not unless the market goes down further. On the balance, there could be some more skin shedding on some counters, but Sensex will resume its poise, I believe. And the market could travel horizontally for the next session.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
