VNSL makes a long distance call

STREET SIGNS

If anyone needs further confirmation here it is. It doesn't take much to spook the markets. There was apparently some talk of fierce fighting raging on near the Line of Control.

Soon enough all hell broke loose, with bluechips witnessing the maximum selloff, resulting in a 50-odd point loss for the Sensex. As big counters came under fire bulls had to make do with purchases in side counters such as Dabur, LIC Housing Finance and Jaiprakash Associates.

Keeping Escort
Foreigners were apparently unaware of any such change in sentiments and kept on buying. HS Busy Brokerage, for example. Their main buying came at the Escorts counter, where the fund picked up some 35-odd lakh shares.

The stock closed the day at Rs 105 and some chartists are backing the stock to drive all the way up to Rs 140. Another interested buyer at the counter was Copped-It-All Fund which took home more than three lakh shares at Rs 106.

Dialling it right
The Videsh Sanchar Nigam (VSNL) stock, which is fast becoming a favourite with many has appreciated nearly 50 per cent in the past two weeks and closed the day at Rs 344.65.

Domestic securities firm, All-Wise Capital, had backed the stock some time back noting that the integration of Tyco's business into VSNL's core business model would add stronger growth flavour over the longer time horizon and had marked the stock as a value buy.

But apparently even they are stumped by the current spike in price. But there are doubting thomases too. Murugan Fund (not related to Stanley) for example had noted back in June that the key risk for VSNL is a sharp decline international bandwidth prices.

Staying with domestic telecom, desi mutual funds are said to be accumulating the Mahangar Telephone Nigam stock, which had been upgraded to 'outperformer' status some time back by none other than the Prized One Brokerage.

Getting the boot
As with all other sectors, there is interest in the shoe-making sector too. We are talking about the Bata India counter, which had been recently visited by such glamorous stars as the Paris Fund and Castro Fund.

While Paris liked what it saw and decided to buy some six lakh shares at Rs 108 levels, Castro was none too pleased and dumped more than eight lakh shares.

In other news...
Desi funds Tumble Ton and HS Busy were buyers at Tata Motors, while Reliable Fund decided to offload the Jaiprakash Industries stock. Tumble Ton's other big deal came at the SRF counter where it sold more than five lakh shares at Rs 300 levels.

The news on IT is not good enough too. Spooked by Infosys results yesterday, foreigners were busy said to be offloading the stock along with that of Satyam.