Despite a positive market, 70 stocks touch 1-yr low today

One way of judging the strength of the market is by looking at the number of counters touching new highs versus those touching new lows. Till a month ago there were some shares that did touch a new high. However, over the past one month, and especially over the last one week, there has been a complete dearth of stocks touching new highs, thus signifying the depth of pessimism in the market.

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Today 70 stocks on the NSE touched a new 52-week low, even as the market is some distance away from its low for the past four days.

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Firstpost takes a look at some of the front line counters that are at a new low.

SAIL has touched a new low of Rs 80.55. The stock has been on a downward spiral since its high of Rs 267 touched in January 2010. Apart from the fact that there has been an overall slowdown in the steel industry, which has impacted both domestic and international players, SAIL has been hit on account of high wage cost due to higher provisioning, rising coking coal prices and operational issues with its coke oven. The company is also cutting demand outlook for India for the current year from 12 percent to 6 percent. As if these factors were not enough, a threat of further equity dilution by the government as part of their divestment programme is keeping investors away.

HPCL has touched a new low of Rs 272. The stock had touched an all time high of Rs 555.70 in September 2010. Like other refining companies HPCL has been affected by under recoveries of subsidised products like diesel, kerosene and LPG. Higher oil prices, weak refining margins and falling rupee has impacted its performance.

Falling aluminium and zinc prices have resulted in Sterlite touching a new 52 week low. The stock has touched a low of Rs 98.70 as compared to a high of Rs 232 in January 2010. Rising prices and unavailability of coal has impacted the company’s margin severely.

Tata Power has touched a year’s low of Rs 90.20, down from a high of Rs 151 touched in January 2010. The company’s earnings have been hit over the last two years resulting in a stretched balance sheet. The company has been affected by its inability to find coal for its Mundra based Ultra Mega Power Plant (UMPP). Lower visibility of its future generation projects has further kept investors away.

United Spirits has touched a low of Rs 678.50, a sharp fall from a high of Rs 1688 it touched in November 2010. Though the performance of the company has been better than market expectation, the stock has been hit on account of its group company, Kingfisher Airlines. There is no direct holding of United Spirits in Kingfisher Airlines. However, its promoter has pledged 88 percent of his holding to raise funds to help bail out Kingfisher.

Piramal Healthcare touched a new yearly low of Rs 341.6 during the day. The company traded at Rs 600 in May 2010 but has fallen since as it sold out its pharmaceutical business. The company utilised its cash to pay dividend and operate as a private equity investment firm. It has made an investment in Vodafone recently, which it plans to offload when the telecom company comes out with an IPO. Piramal Healthcare recently hived off its research wing, making it a purely private equity company.