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Vidya Bala

MARKETS witnessed a roller coaster ride through the past week. Volatility continued to dominate the bourses with the Sensex and Nifty gaining less than 1 per cent over the week.

It has nevertheless been an uninterrupted rally for 11 straight weeks with the Sensex and S&P Nifty gaining 17 per cent and 15 per cent respectively during this period.

Shedding aside panic of the previous week's terrorist attack, the markets started on a strong note on Monday with added optimism in the banking stocks.

Tuesday saw a lacklustre performance and ended on a flat note after the first quarter results of Infosys failed to impress investors.

Buying at lower levels, however, helped the market to stabilise.

Rise in crude oil prices to over $60 per barrel and extreme caution ahead of upcoming first quarter results gripped the market sentiments over the next couple of days and led to profit booking across various counters, dragging the indices down.

A strong pull back towards close of the week's session ensured a positive close of markets.

The S&P Nifty closed at 2212.5 points — 0.7 per cent more than the previous week. While the CNX Midcap 200 managed to post a 3 per cent gain over the week, CNX IT declined by 3.5 per cent.

FIIs continued to invest amidst all the volatility. Net FII inflows at the end of the week stood at Rs 1,592 crore.

In the basket of NSE 50 stocks, VSNL continued to perplex the market with a 28 per cent gain during the week. ACC gained over 8 per cent after it declared a 72 per cent increase in its first quarter earnings that included a sizeable one-time income.

The company has also decided to change its financial year to January-December.

The result also buoyed other cement players such as India Cements, Madras Cements and Dalmia Cement. The Reliance group stocks rallied by 7.5 per cent.

The Government had earlier made a decision to keep out the private oil companies from the subsidy-sharing scheme for the quarter ended June 2005. Tata Chemicals, Hero Honda and IPCL were other significant gainers in the S&P CNX Nifty.

It was a gloomy week for IT stocks. A 37-per cent increase in first quarter earnings of Infosys did not lend optimism to the market.

Instead it resulted in dragging the indices down. Infosys shares declined by 6 per cent over the week to close at Rs.2195.9. TCS also witnessed a decline during the week .

The company's Q1 earnings has surged by 33 per cent. Hexaware Technologies scaled down its earnings guidance.

The positive news in the counter was a 39 per cent rise in the stock of California Software during the week.

The company plans to acquire US-based Informed Decisions Corp.

HDFC Bank announced a 31-per cent increase in its first quarter profits.

The results could not influence the market sentiment and the stock shed 3.3 per cent during the week to close at Rs 630.6.

HDFC also declined by 2 per cent to close at Rs 890.9. The company had reported a 21-per cent rise in Q1 earnings.

ITI gained 40 per cent during the week to close at Rs 62.8 after it bagged an order worth Rs 1,233 crore from BSNL.

ITC made a modest gain of 4 per cent. The company plans to set up a new plant for paper at a cost of Rs 2,500 crore.

Among the media stocks while TV Today, Sandesh, NDTV and Navneet Publications closed in positive territory. Television Eighteen and Media Video stayed out of the rally.

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