Stocks in the news

Infosys Technology remained weak throughout last week, declining by 6.7 per cent, on high delivery volumes. The stock price declined from Rs 1694.80 on January 4 to Rs 1580.10 on January 11, and the combined trading volumes rose by 170 per cent.

Infosys Technologies presented its third quarter results on January 10. According to an analyst at Religare, there is nothing substantial to quell the current negative sentiments surrounding Infosys. The results have largely been in line with expectations. The revenue was up 4 per cent quarter-on-quarter, while net profit excluding tax refund rose by 7.4 per cent.

According to Harit Shah, IT-telecom analyst, Angel Broking, Infosys' volume growth of four per cent was aided by price increases and a 5.1 per cent growth in offshore volumes. Offshore billing rates were up 1.3 per cent, while the onsite rates grew by 1.1 per cent. The margins looked up mainly on account of scale benefits on the SG&A side.

Going ahead, Shah expects Infosys to record a 22 per cent CAGR growth in its topline over the period FY2007-10E and net profits to clock a CAGR of 17 per cent over the same period.

FII stake buy boosts Sayaji Hotels

The shares of Sayaji Hotels closed at an all-time high of Rs 110.25 after the foreign institutional investors (FIIs) bought an additional 1.57 per cent stake in the company. The stock has gained 17.35 per cent on the BSE in a week's time, from Rs 93.95 earlier.

Ruane Cunniff & Goldfard, an FII from USA, purchased 2.01 lakh equity shares of the company in the secondary market. Its holding has thus increased from 3.85 per cent to 5.41 per cent.

Sayaji is engaged in the hotel business. It has hotels at Vadodara and Gandhidham and hotel projects at Rajkot, Jamnagar, Bhavnagar and Bhopal. The hotel majorn has also decided to diversify into the financial and power sectors.

The company posted 171 per cent growth in net profit to Rs 1.69 crore in the third quarter ended December 2007 against Rs 62 lakh in the corresponding quarter last year. The net sales increased by 67 per cent to Rs 19.40 crore (Rs 11.51 crore) during the period.