NEW DELHI, May 25: In the absence of a clear direction, brokers on the bourses chose to be very selective. Though the market was cool to the bad news from S&P, a host of issues specific to individual companies or industries dominated trading. Punters played on mergers and acquisitions, besides results of companies which had so far been written off by the market. They were also harsh on those coming out with disappointing results.Info-tech stocks continued their rally with scrips like Pentafour Software attracting heavy buying orders, as the scrip is being traded in the no-delivery period. Others like, HCL Infosystems attracted heavy trading volumes resulting in a buyer freeze at Rs 290 on the BSE. Smaller companies like KLG Systel, after reporting good performance, also attracted a buyer freeze at around Rs 75. The scrip entered the no-delivery period on Monday and excessive speculation led to the imposition of special margins on the Delhi Stock Exchange.
Anagram Finance rose marginally on Mondayfollowing the announcement by the promoters that they would buy from the public the company's shares at Rs 18. Soon after the announcement of its merger with ICICI, the Anagram scrip had slumped to around Rs 14. A ratio of 1:15 would have dragged the scrip down to Rs 7, given ICICI's share price ruling around Rs 100. But thanks to the offer by promoters, the fall has been arrested.
Nirma continued to be a favourite of the punters. The scrip has jumped by more than Rs 100 over the last eight to nine trading sessions to Rs 418 on Monday. The company has reported a 43 per cent jump in net profit to Rs 152.27 crore. The turnover grew by 13.43 per cent to Rs 1046 crore. The scrip even at the current price of Rs 418 discounts the current EPS of Rs 45 at a very attractive PE of 9.28. The scrip is trading at its six month high.
Orchid Chemicals, is turning out to be the wonder scrip for punters. After news broke out that the company has developed an alternative process to manufacture an active ingredient inViagra, the scrip has been hitting a buyer freeze almost every day. On Monday, however, the volumes spurted to 50,300 shares on the BSE, despite the freeze. The scrip has appreciated from Rs 90 to the current Rs 123, in six trading sessions. The company reported a 11 per cent jump in net profit to Rs 34.08 crore for the year ended March 1998. The earning per share of Rs 19.65 had already laid the ground for buying. Even at its price of Rs 90, the PE was a very attractive 4.58, which has now gone up to 6.28.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
