Satyam recorded a huge volume of Rs 234.49 crore out of the total turnover of Rs 919.30 crore on the BSE. The scrip topped the A group and was much above the volume in ITC which recorded a turnover of Rs 130 crore. The scrip rose by Rs 34.50 to Rs 486 mainly on speculative support. On the NSE too, the most actively traded share was Satyam with a turnover of Rs 269.10 crore, followed by ITC with Rs 242.78 crore and Pentafour with Rs 92.88 crore.

``The huge business volume in Satyam is because of excessive speculation.The exchange officials need to monitor software scrips more closely,'' said a fund manager. The equity capital of Satyam is around Rs 26 crore as against the capital of Rs 932 in the case of Reliance.

The imposition of additional volatilitymargins has failed to check the runaway price rise in infotech scrips. Bull operators continue to build positions in these counters by simply paying the margins.

HCL Infosytems, which attracted an additional volatility margin of 40 per cent, continues to rise. The scrip gained 6.7 per cent on Monday to touch Rs 186. Similarly, Pentafour Software rose from Rs 694 to Rs 724, an appreciation of over 4.3 per cent. Pentafour stood fourth in volume by attracting business of Rs 76.49 crore. Clearly, the operators in the counter have been unfazed by the additional volatility margin of 30 per cent imposed by BSE. Other infotech scrips like KLG Systel, Mastek and Software Solutions also show a similar trend.

Sebi's bid to provide additional safety and act as a deterrent to a build-up of excessive positions has come a cropper. Though intra-day volatility has been contained, phenomenal gains in the past week show bulls have already built large positions. While the aim was to stop the one-way price rise, bylifting the 25 per cent weekly margin it has actually given operators a chance to push prices beyond this ceiling.