The Hindu Business Line : Select stocks active on company-specific events

THURSDAY was a dull day on the bourses as the indices traded in a tight band except for select stocks, which evoked some activity. On the Bombay Stock Exchange, the benchmark 30-share Sensex edged up marginally by 12.25 points or 0.34 per cent to close at 3570.46 points. The Sensex moved in a narrow band of 31.17 points, touching a high of 3590.99 and a low of 3558.82.

The advance to decline ratio, representing broad market trend, was in favour of buyers. The advance accounted for 726 stocks compared with 528 shares that declined. Traded volumes dropped further to 7.6 crore shares as against 7.82 crore shares traded on Wednesday.

On the National Stock Exchange, the broader 50-share S&P CNX Nifty inched up by 3.90 points or 0.34 per cent to close at 1149.85. In line with the BSE, gainers led losers 409 to 281. Around 11.72 crore shares exchanged hands on the NSE.

Select stocks attracted market attention on company-specific news.

Asea Brown Boveri rose as much as 5.5 per cent to Rs 258.05 after the company declared a rise in its net profits for the quarter ended December 2001. The prospects of higher exports in the current year appear to have propped up interest in the stock.

United Breweries (UB) went up as much as 3.46 per cent to Rs 149.25 after the firm announced that it would use the cash from the sale of 26 per cent stake in the company to cut huge debts and fund takeovers. British brewing major Scottish & Newcastle Plc had earlier expressed interest in buying the 26 per cent stake in UB.

ETC Networks jumped 8.27 per cent to Rs 30.75 after Zee Telefilms announced that it would make an open offer to buy a further 20-per cent from public shareholders at Rs 31.52 a share.

Jammu and Kashmir Bank appreciated 8.23 per cent to Rs 75 following some reported news that the bank was scouting for a foreign equity investor to offload up to 15-per cent stake.

Timex Watches surged 19.9 per cent to Rs 10.55 after its US-based parent hiked its stake to 83.58 per cent from 79.47 per cent. This move is expected to improve its future prospects.

Auto stocks such as Ashok Leyland, Mahindra & Mahindra and Hero Honda were bullish on better monthly sales reports for February.

Zensor Technologies and Kotak Mahindra were among the hot favourites of the day. Zensar surged as high as 20 per cent and settled at Rs 102.05. Traded volumes also rose to 1.47 lakh shares compared with 9,300 shares traded the day before. Kotak Mahindra jumped 19.96 per cent to end at Rs 113.90. Around 2.56 lakh shares exchanged hands against 30,000 shares traded on Wednesday.

Few other stocks that witnessed hectic activity were Apollo Hospitals, Apollo Tyres, Synergy Log-In, Engineers India, TV 18 and Tata Telecom.

It was a rather quiet day for technology stocks such as Infosys, Satyam, Wipro and NIIT. In the absence of any trigger, major pharmaceutical counters — Dr Reddy's and Ranbaxy — also closed flat on Thursday.

Cements counters such as Gujarat Ambuja, Grasim Industries and India Cements closed weak. Stocks such as Galaxy Info Systems, Color Chem, Rayban Sunglass and TVS Motor also appeared in the losers' list.

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Select stocks active on company-specific events