Infosys proves a bitter pill

STREET SIGNS

So it turned out to be another bad day for the markets. The reasons touted were many and included lame excuses as profit booking, dull outlook on technology stocks, high oil prices among others.

But the real culprits seem to be lying somewhere else. Nosey Parker told us that several operators had gone short on Nifty futures of late and when that happens there is only one way the markets could go "" southwards.

Lord picks his pen
Hats off to our Lord of the Ring. The man sure knows how to pick stocks, even when others keep wondering what the big story is all about. Not that we know any better, but we heard on the streets that the Lord has turned his attention to Linc Pen & Plastics.

The stock price has doubled in the past four months to Rs 78 and whether that is because of Lord's blessings is still not clear. But Thursday's buying on the stock seems to have been prompted by a rather mundane piece of news.

Apparently, the company which is a marketer of Mitsubishi products, has launched Jetstream roller pens, a Uniball collection of Mitsubishi Pencil Co of Japan, priced at Rs 80 a piece. So what you may well ask? But if the Lord is interested there must be some reason.

Getting it right
There is some buzz about one big investor called Moneybags, who only invests for long-term benefits. The news is that the above-mentioned gentleman is dipping into his considerably deep pockets to invest in stocks such as IQ Infotech and Galaxy Entertainment.

Apparently the Moneybags picked up the IQ Infotech stock at around Rs 4 levels (which was back in January, 2005) and has watched with glee as it soared to its current Rs 23 levels. Not too bad, we say.

The other stock, Galaxy Entertainment Corporation has also been witnessing happy days and has risen from a humble Rs 90 levels in May to its current levels of Rs 188.

Getting it wrong
Coming to the big boys, Lending Brokerage is busy licking its wounds at the Infosys counter. The Q1FY06 results have failed to enthuse the markets, which have seen the stock climbing down quite sharply in the past two days.

This is quite different to what the brokerage house had anticipated a few days back. In an early July report, the firm had installed Infy as the leader of the IT pack and had predicted 29 per cent earnings CAGR over FY05-FY08.

Worse still, they had revised the 12-month target price to Rs 3000. Though these are still early days and nobody doubts Infy's potential, Lending Brokerage is taking no chances and has sold off a chunk of shares at the counter.

In other news....
Desi fund, Prudent fund is buying Essar Oil and Shree Cements, while Copped-It-All fund has turned its attention to Kakatiya Cements. Big Hammer Fund was a seller at the Titan Industries counter, offloading more than seven lakh shares at Rs 512.