SKINDIA INDIAN GDR MONITOR
Volume VI No 17	Apr 22-Apr 29, 1999	30-Apr-99

After a relatively dull previous week , this week saw some buying interest in the depository receipts, on the other hand the domestic market continued to be sluggish. Persistent buying in cyclicals by institutional investors, and short covering by punters pushed the Skindia GDR Index up by 14.52 points but fears that fresh election meant another prolonged round of political uncertainty and delay in economic policy implementation pushed down the BSE Sensex by 83.05 points. During the week not much activity was seen in the bourses as a result the average spreads of the 39 most actively traded DRs widened to 9.54% on April 29 from 8.72% on April 22. and the average premiums moved up to 14.38% on April 29 from 12.60% on April 22. In the week the 63 DRs on an average gained 2.39% and the shares lost 2.44%.In DRs IT with a decline of 6.66% was the only top loser. The top gainers were telecom gaining 5.52% followed by power and hotel sector gaining 2.94% and 1.06% respectively. In shares steel sector was the major loser falling 12.78% followed by pharma which fell 7.22% and auto falling 5.38%. Telecom, fertliser and cable were the only gainers rising 8.49% 5.22% and 3.31% respectively. Cement sector remained unchanged in both DRs and shares. Telecom Sector - calling wrong numbers Telecom sector's performance during the financial year 1998-99. On an average the GDRs have declined by 29.89% against a fall of 25.95% in the Skindia GDR Index. The shares depreciated 22.78% compared to a fall of 5.78% in the BSE Sensex. MTNL GDR lost 38.01% and the VSNL 33.56% during this period. Comparatively the performance during the first half was worse than the second half. During the first half the loss was 30.70% and 13.73% while in the second half it was 8.82% and 7.85% for MTNL and VSNL respectively. During the year the volatility registered by these GDRs was 4.01% and 3.08%, while the Skindia GDR Index had a volatility of 2.77%. On Feb 11, VSNL made a second issue of GDR at a price of $9.25. It started trading at $10.10 and currently quoting at $9.60, is at a premium of 3.78% to the issue price and a discount of 7.51% to the first days closing price. On Apr 29, 1999 both MTNL and VSNL announced their annual results. MTNL recorded an increase of 16.56% in its net profit to Rs 1317.28 cr, while the VSNL net profit increased by 38.58% to Rs 1,341.30 cr. On the announcement of results the price of MTNL GDR remained unchanged at $ 9.48 and that of VSNL moved up by 3.13% to $ 9.90. Their share prices increased by 3.40% to Rs 155.20 and 7.86% to Rs 645.00 respectively.

DISCLAIMER : Factual material is obtained from sources believed to be reliable and SkindiaFinance is not responsible for any errors and omissions contained herein. Any recommendation contained in this report may not be suitable for all issuers.