Top Movers- June 14 :: Business Line

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The market, which had been on a losing streak since Tuesday, reversed course on Friday. The benchmark indices, nonetheless, ended the week lower. Both the Sensex and the Nifty lost over 1.2 per cent during the week to close at 19,178 and 5,808 respectively. MCX Stock Exchange’s SX40, which closed at 11,386, too was down 1.2 per cent.

The continued weakness in the rupee — which plunged close to 2 per cent against the dollar on Monday — weighed on the markets through most of the week. Intervention by the RBI on Tuesday, and pep talks by government functionaries, however, helped the rupee recover some lost ground.

Weak macro economic data too played spoil sport. Disappointing industrial growth during April (2.3 per cent) and higher-than-expected consumer price inflation in May at 9.31 per cent dampened market sentiment. The silver lining was an upward revision by Fitch in the outlook for India, to stable from negative.

On Friday, the markets were buoyed amid hopes of a rate cut next week. This followed WPI inflation for May declining to a 42-month low of 4.7 per cent. The Finance Minister’s announcement of a five-point action plan to boost growth and its endorsement by the Prime Minister also seem to have helped.

Among sectoral indices, all except S&P BSE Oil & Gas ended in the red the past week. The biggest losers were S&P BSE Consumer Durables (down 10.7 per cent), S&P BSE Metal (down 5.5 per cent) and S&P BSE Realty (down 4.8 per cent). Titan Industries, which has a 49 per cent weight in the S&P BSE Consumer Durables Index, shed 18 per cent during the week. The RBI’s latest move to curb gold imports will result in changes in the company’s business model and raise costs. Other jewellery stocks such as Shree Ganesh Jewellery House, PC Jeweller and Gitanjali Gems shed 5 to 17 per cent.

Public sector company MMTC plunged after the government, on Thursday, sold 9.33 per cent stake to comply with minimum public shareholding norms. With the floor price fixed at a 70 per cent discount to the previous day’s closing price, the stock corrected to end the week 21 per cent lower.

The stock of Jindal Steel & Power was down 13 per cent this week after a fresh case was registered by the CBI against the company and its promoter Naveen Jindal in the coal block allocation scam.

Sun Pharma settled a patent-infringement suit with Wyeth and Altana Pharma AG over sale of the generic pantoprazole drug in the US. Sun, which will have to dish out $550 million as part of the settlement, ended the week 6 per cent lower. The company had provisioned only for about $107 million, last year. 

The market gave the thumbs down to Apollo Tyres’ acquisition of the US-based Cooper Tire & Rubber Company. The Apollo stock tanked 29 per cent this week. The fact that the $2.5 billion deal — bigger than the company’s current market cap of $800 million — will be entirely debt funded was not taken well by the market.

Stocks of public sector oil market marketing companies traded weak amid worries of rising under-recoveries due to a depreciating rupee. Indian Oil Corporation, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation and Bharat Petroleum Corporation lost 2 to 7 per cent over the week. Upstream oil companies — ONGC and Oil India — which bear a part of the burden were down 3 per cent and 0.2 per cent respectively.

An exception to an otherwise weak market was Tech Mahindra, the stock of which gained 3 per cent this week. This followed approval from the Andhra Pradesh High Court to the merger of Mahindra Satyam with Tech Mahindra. Mahindra Satyam closed the week 4 per cent up.