Trade cautiously in volatile market

Markets continued their choppy movement but kept the momentum intact. While the final outcome of the week could be termed as flat or neutral, the upward move and making new highs continued. BSE SENSEX gained 2.72 points or 0.01 percent to close at 40,359.41 points. It made a new high of 40,816.38 points during the week. NIFTY gained 18.95 points or 0.16 percent to close at 11,914.40 points. The intraweek high on NIFTY was 12038.60 points.

The broader market saw BSE100, BSE200 and BSE500 gain 0.17 percent, 0.10 percent and 0.12 percent respectively. BSE MIDCAP lost 0.23 percent while BSE SMALLCAP gained 0.21 percent. The benchmark indices gained on two of the five yarding sessions and lost on the remaining three.

Dow Jones lost 45.96 points or 0.16 percent to close at 27,875.62 points. There is hardly any progress on trade talks between US and China. The Indian Rupee gained 7 paisa or 0.10 percent to close at Rs 71.71 to the US Dollar.

Subash Chandra has sold the majority stake in his flagship company Zee Entertainment Enterprises Limited. He sold about 16.5 percent stake in the company to financial investors and now holds just about 5 percent. The money realised would be used to pare his debt. Share prices of ZEEL rose sharply on Thursday and Friday and gained Rs 70.40 or 24.49 percent to close at Rs 357.90. The deal is interesting as with Subash Chandra owning a mere 5 percent in the company, he would not be a controlling shareholder. However, with the new investors being financial investors, Subash Chandra would continue to drive operations at least for the time being.

November futures expire on Thursday the 28th of November. The current value of NIFTY at 11,914.40 points, is up 36.95 points or 0.31 percent. In a choppy month the same is insignificant. With momentum in favour of bulls it would be fair that they should be able to end the series with further gains.

CSB Bank Limited is tapping the capital markets with its fresh issue of Rs 24 crore and an offer for sale of 1.98 crore shares. The price band of the issue is Rs 193-195 and the issue has opened on Friday the 22nd of November and would close on Tuesday the 26th of November. The bank was a loss-making one and has made a profit only in the six months ended September 2019. The company earned an EPS of Rs 3.86 in the six months. The book value of the bank has improved from Rs 78.54 as of March 2019 to Rs 89.19 as of 30th September 2019.

The selling shareholders cost of acquisition ranges from Rs 83.98 to Rs 255.86, indicating that the performance of the bank historically has not been ideal. The turnaround in the performance has come to post-Prem Watsa acquiring a controlling stake of 51 percent. Incidentally, he is not selling any stake in the bank in the current IPO.

The retail portion of the issue which is 10 percent of the overall issue size was subscribed 5.6 times on day one. Earlier the company allotted 94.54 lac shares to 13 anchor investors comprising of 24 entities at Rs 195. With hardly any activity in the primary market and a marquee investor driving the bank, response to the issue is expected to be very strong and positive. Money could be made on listing and then by those who are patient and willing to hold the shares as there is a hefty premium in the grey market already present.

The week ahead would see markets remaining volatile and volatility increasing as we approach expiry day. Though the week gone by was flat, the coming one should trade with a positive bias and in all probability, NIFTY should make a new lifetime high crossing the level of 12,103.05 points made on 3rd June 2019.

Trade cautiously in what would be a volatile market but with a positive bias.