Emerging faith in Alps' turnaround

STREET SIGNS

Doomsday prophets who have been telling anybody who cared to listen that stocks are at an overbought position and thus likely to crash soon met their comeuppance. Again. The markets responded by posting a new high, which is not news anymore, this time well above the 7700 mark.

Emerging stories
There is no end to the buying stamina of our Emerging fund. The latest counter where the fund has made purchases is Alps Industries. The fund is said to have bought 50,000 shares at Rs 147 levels. That is after the scrip had risen a cool 250 per cent over the past 12 month.

Apparently, Emerging Fund is mighty pleased with the turnaround in Alps fortunes. The company engaged in the manufacture and distribution of home furnishings, under the brand name Vista Levolor, posted a net profit of Rs 5.32 crore, as against a loss of Rs 0.14 crore in the corresponding quarter in FY04. There was also a 24 per cent rise in net sales to Rs 50 crore.

But not all Emerging stories are of buying. The fund has sold shares of Ind-Swift Laboratories at Rs 187 levels. This comes as a bit of a surprise since the stock has seen a big spurt in stock price over the past year.

But may not be enough as per the seller's calculation. The stock, which was languishing at Rs 47 levels one year back had touched Rs 270 in late December 2004, but has declined since then. However, chartists are still bullish on the stock and some are backing it to go all the way up to Rs 300 levels.

Castro capers
Strange are the ways of Castro fund. The fund recently made some purchases at the mid-tier IT counter Geometric Software at Rs 548 levels. Now what makes it surprising is that Geometric had recently announced a four per cent decline in its sequential net profits (though y-o-y, the profits have gone up 53 per cent).

May be Castro is of the opinion that with the most IT funds facing the heat in the past quarter, time is ripe for a revival in fortunes. Desi, Kodak Fund was the seller at the counter.

In other news
Paris Fund is taking an active interest in the IFCI stock. According to sources, the former has picked up some 40 lakh shares of IFCI at a price of Rs 16. Recent reports have suggested that the government is likely to buy more time for the IFCI-IDBI merger.

The government has reduced its majority holding of 60.08 per cent in IFCI to a minority stake of 42.5 per cent in the last one year. With the government holding now coming down, it seems PC is having a hard time convincing the comrades about the government's inability to make the merger happen anytime soon.