Yesterday's FII invesments must have really perked up the mood among the broking community. It has happened many times over the past few days that foreign institutional investor investments have emerged negative at the end of the day despite a 70-80-odd point rise in the Sensex.
Apart from giving a leg-up to the indices and sentiment, institutional business to the tune of nearly Rs 400 crore, that too in a single trading session after a very long time, must have provided a ray of hope to lot of brokerages who are really finding the going tough.
Despite frenzied buying interest yesterday, many players are asking the same question: How long can this go on?
An European brokerage official fely the market desperately needs retail money. In his words: "Retail money is a potent force waiting to be unleashed. Unless that moolah really flows in, the market will find it difficult to sustain; and scores of brokerages could be pushed to closure."
This school of thought may come as a surprise to many who thought that big brokerages were only interested in institutional clients.
Whodunit?
Informed players point a finger at Morgan Stanley sub-accounts as the major force behind yesterday's flare-up. It may be recalled that the Morgan Stanley index had recently upped its India weightage twice in the past couple of months.
Considering this, there is reason to believe that the fund could have been very active in the market yesterday. A leading US-based investor, whose activities can make or break the market, is also reported to have been an active buyer.
Around 15 lakh shares of State Bank of India were purchased yesterday. It was not clear whether the entire lot was purchased by a single or different funds.
The mammoth purchase should come as a relief to this counter which witnessed a sale of around 20 lakh shares last week.
ITC picked up again
Around 15 lakh shares of ITC were also picked up yesterday. Again, the identity of the fund could not be confirmed. There were also reports that a domestic fund, which had sold ITC shares on Tuesday to another FII-brokerage at a premium (remember the goof-up on ITC last week?) was once again buying at lower levels.
Around 10 lakh shares of Bhel were purchased yesterday. A leading US-based fund was reported to be one of the buyers at the counter in a big way.
The MTNL stock, too, saw sustained buying yesterday, with 4 lakh shares being purchased by an FII brokerage on behalf of a foreign fund. In all, 6.5 lakh shares have been purchased between various foreign funds at the counter in the past two trading sessions.
Bajaj Auto, too, figured in the `buy' list of the leading US-based fund which is reported to have picked up around 2 lakh shares. In all at least 2.5 lakh shares was picked up by foreign funds yesterday.
There was some relief for the Hindustan Lever counter too. The scrip has been see-sawing sharply over the past couple of weeks. The week before last, it saw good amount of buying interest, only to be dumped by another fund the following week. Again, fresh buying interest seems to have reemerged with around 1.75 lakh shares having been picked up by a foreign yesterday.
Stubbed out
The GTC share also met the same fate yesterday as Godfrey Phillips had a few days back. Despite the Sensex moving up 90 points yesterday, trading in the GTC scrip was frozen after there were only sellers at the counter. Perhaps, the predators eyeing the company's brands may have given up their plans. Or perhaps, market players are not too optimistic about promoter Sanjay Dalmia's idea to acquire new brands.
