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Old economy stocks miss rally

DALAL STREET

NSE

BULLS and bears waged a full-scale war on Dalal Street on Thursday, bringing cheer to technology stock investors while old economy punters seemed ready to rip their shirts off.

Traders argued if the market had gone up or down, as equities opened the day with an upside gap of 121 points and slid continuously through the day.

After a long time, technology stocks emerged in the limelight and opened with a sizable gap over the previous close, taking a cue from the distant Nasdaq's rise of 14 per cent. The gains were not sustainable as operators dumped incessantly at higher leve ls. Leading domestic institution, Unit Trust of India, was also seen selling in selective technology counters such as Infosys, SSI, Satyam and Visualsoft, dealers said.

The old economy counters such as ACC, GACL, L&T, BHEL, MTNL, Grasim, ITC came under severe selling pressure from after six days of continuous rise.

``Technology bulls were hammering the oldies while old economy punters were pounding infotech stocks,'' dealers said.

Good Mr Greenspan surprised the markets with an unannounced 50-basis points (0.5 per cent) rate cut in US federal interest rates ahead of its scheduled meeting on January 31. Money and punters flocked to equities pushing the tech-laden Nasdaq-100 gained 324 points, or 14 per cent, on Wednesday.

In a day of heightened activity with the Bombay Stock Exchange recording a higher volume of Rs 5,235 crore, the benchmark BSE-30 share sensitive index (Sensex) lost 65.60 points from the intra-day high to close at 4,115.37, netting a gain of 55.35 points over the previous close.

At the NSE, the S&P CNX Nifty gained 16.40 points, or 1.27 per cent, to close at 1,307.65.

LYONS RANGE

THE Calcutta Stock Exchange saw a recovery in tech stocks on Thursday, the local settlement day.

The operators' favourites, Satyam Computer and HFCL, improved by 11.83 per cent and 7.4 per cent respectively. The DSQ Software scrip gained by 5.98 per cent.

Top among the other gainers were the scrips of Global Tele, Digital Equipment and HLL.

A notable loser was the L&T stock (5.1 per cent).

The CSE-50 closed at 125.08 as against the previous closing of 125. The total turnover of the exchange stood at Rs 2,153.12 crore. -- Our Bureaus