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THE stock of public sector Punjab National Bank (PNB) on Monday touched a new all-time high. The new high and sharp rise in the stock price was due to active purchases from select buyers and also from some institutional investors. Dealers said the sudden spurt in the stock price was on talks that the bank is likely to return part of equity back to the government. Currently the government has 80 per cent equity stake in PNB out of the paid-up capital of Rs 265 crore. Even though the exact quantum of the return of the equity is not known, market players are speculating that government holding could come down to 51 per cent. This led to the stock rising sharply on Monday. The stock gained 18.09 per cent at Rs 146.25 on the BSE with a volume of 38.09 lakh shares and on the NSE it closed at Rs 147.80, up 19.58 per cent with a volume of 88.53 lakh shares.

Infosys down as hedge fund sells

EVEN the good news of Infosys settling the sexual harassment case could not hold the stock firm on Monday. The index heavyweight stock was down on account of heavy selling from a hedge fund. The stock closed at Rs 2,789, down 4.69 per cent with a volume of 11.39 lakh shares on the NSE and on the BSE it was down 4.77 per cent at Rs 2,788 with a volume of 4.01 lakh shares. Dealers said a hedge fund sold around 1-1.5 lakh shares of Infosys and this led selling in the counter from other market players also. However, the selling had nothing to do with the company settling the harassment case.

Ranbaxy skids on fall in Ceftin price

ANOTHER index stock that saw selling was pharma company Ranbaxy Laboratories. The stock closed 2.59 per cent lower at Rs 625.10 on the BSE with volume of 3.08 lakh shares and on the NSE it closed at Rs 626.50, down 2.51 per cent with volume of 8.25 lakh shares. Dealers said the selling in the counter is seen from various institutional investors. This is due to concern over the price of Ranbaxy's generic Ceftin. The talk is that from July onwards, severe competition and fall in prices for Ceftin is expected to affect Ranbaxy US sales. The company's another generic drug Accutane will see increasing competition with Barr Laboratories expected to launch its branded version in May.

Virendra Verma

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