NEWS ROUND UP 22nd – 26th March

Hello Friends here we come up with the News Round Up from various categories.

Economy

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·The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) unexpectedly raised interest rates from record-low levels for the first time since it began cutting in 2008, citing intensifying inflationary pressures and a steady economic recovery. The central bank raised the repo rate, the rate at which it lends to banks to 5.00 percent from 4.75 percent and reverse repo rate, the rate which it absorbs funds from the system to 3.50 percent from 3.25 percent with immediate effect.

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·India’s Wholesale price inflation accelerated to 9.89 percent in February from a year ago, above the Reserve Bank of India’s end March projection of 8.5 percent and higher than the 8.56 percent level recorded in January this year.

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·India’s food price index rose 16.30 percent in the 12 months to March 6, while the fuel index was up 12.68 percent. The rise in the food price index was lower than an annual rise of 17.81 percent in the previous week.

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Pharmaceutical

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·Elder Pharmaceuticals had increased its stake in Bulgarian subsidiary Elder Biomeda AD to 61 per cent from the present 51 per cent, as part of its strategy to strengthen its presence in the European market. The Rs 600- crore turnover Elder Pharma did not disclose the deal size. In April 2008, Elder had formed Biomeda AD in Bulgaria, to acquire three Bulgarian healthcare companies belonging to the local Biomeda group.

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Metal

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·Welspun Gujarat Stahl Rohren unit will acquire a 75 per cent stake in MSK Projects, marking its foray into infrastructure. Welspun will invest a total of Rs 400 crore, of which Rs 200 crore will be infused directly into MSK.

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Realty/ Construction.

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·Punj Lloyd has bagged a project worth $40 million (nearly Rs 181 crore) from Abu Dhabi Gas Industries (GASCO) for infrastructure related works.

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The company has secured a letter of award for engineering, procurement and construction works in UAE from GASCO.

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·Subhash Projects & Marketing has bagged two orders worth Rs 475.34 crore for infrastructure related works. The company, along with Kirloskar Brothers Ltd, has bagged a contract worth Rs 439.35 crore from Bangalore Water supply Sewerage Board for civil and electromechanical works.

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·· Hindustan Construction Company (HCC) acquired a controlling stake in Swiss real estate firm Karl Steiner AG in an all-cash deal for around Rs 150 crore (Swiss Francs 35 million), a move that will pave way for the company to enter the European and Gulf markets.

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·PT Madhucon Indonesia, a subsidiary of the Hyderabad-based infrastructure company Madhucon Projects Ltd, has been granted a new coal mining business permit for exploration of 30,970 hectares at Mauraduwa in south Sumatra, Indonesia.

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Oil & Gas

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·GAIL India plans to transit 21 per cent more natural gas through its pipelines at 114.8 million cubic meters per day in 2010-11 fiscal. The company in a press statement that it has set a target of transmitting 114.8 mmscmd of natural gas from domestic fields and imported LNG in 2010-11 fiscal as opposed to moving 94.8 mmscmd during current fiscal.

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Capital Goods

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·McNally Bharat Engineering Company has bagged an order worth Rs 173.2 crore for works at Mahanadi Coalfields in Sambalpur, Orissa. This is the third order that the company has bagged within a week, the first two being from NPCC and SAIL.

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·Larsen & Toubro (L&T) has bagged a project worth Rs 2,035 crore from ONGC Mangalore Petrochemicals Ltd to set up an aromatics complex at Mangalore special economic zone.

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Automobile.

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·Mahindra & Mahindra has joined the long list of corporate houses looking to obtain a banking licence after the finance minister’s budget speech revealed that banking regulator RBI was planning to allow more players in the sector. A top executive of the $6.3-billion group that it was planning to seek a banking licence for its non-banking finance company Mahindra & Mahindra Financial Services (MMFSL).

NEWS ROUND UP

Economy

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·IIP for the month of January grew 16.7% on year. The mining sector grew 14.6% in the month while the manufacturing sector grew 17.9%. The electricity sector witnessed a growth of 5.6% in the month.

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India’s annual food price index increased 17.81% as on week ended February 27, slower than the 17.87% growth recorded last week. A year ago, food prices were up 7.54%.

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Healthcare

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·Fortis Healthcare announced the largest overseas acquisition by an Indian company in the healthcare space, buying the entire 23.9 per cent stake held by TPG Capital in Singapore’s Parkway Holding Ltd for $686 million (Rs 3,119 crore).

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Capital Goods

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·ABB Ltd. has bagged orders worth $22 million (nearly Rs 100 crore) from Haryana Vidyut Prasaran Nigam for the supply of four sub-stations. The company would deliver four sub-stations equipped with automation, protection and control systems to HVPNL.

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·Areva T&D India has bagged a contract worth Rs 400 crore from Uttar Pradesh(UP) Power Transmission Corporation for building a substation. The company’s transmission and distribution division will build a 765 KV extra high voltage substation at Anpara thermal plant in UP.

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·Thermax announced a JV with US-based Babcock & Wilcox Power Generation Group to manufacture super-critical boilers in the country. The total investment in the JV is estimated at Rs 700 crore.

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·McNally Bharat Engineering Company has bagged an order worth Rs 245.42 crore from Steel Authority of India Ltd for infrastructure related works at Rourkela steel plant. The contract is for inter-plant transportation facilities at Rourkela steel plant.

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Mining & Minerals

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·State-owned miner NMDC is planning to invest around Rs 2,400 crore to lay a pipeline between its Chhattisgarh plant and Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh.

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Realty & Construction

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·Gammon India has bagged an order worth Rs Rs 631.81 crore from Delhi Tourism and Transportation Development Corporation for construction of bridge. The company has received the project for construction of bridge and its approaches over river Yamuna, Delhi.

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·Hindustan Construction Company (HCC) has plans to invest around Rs 50,000 crore in its township project in Lavasa, near here, over the next 10-12 years ·Hindustan Construction Company (HCC) along with its joint venture partner has bagged a contract worth Rs 197 crore from North Frontier Railway for
development of a tunnel in Imphal.The company has bagged the project along with its JV partner Coastal Projects Ltd for developing a railway tunnel between Jiribam and Tupur in Imphal.

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·Nagarjuna Construction Company secured new contracts aggregating to Rs 1,221 crore. The first order is of two contracts valued at Rs 647 crore from Hyderabad Growth Corridor. In addition, it has secured three contracts worth Rs 358 crore from Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution.

·Construction firm Ahluwalia Contracts India is in acquisition talks for specialised construction firms, with a war-chest of up to Rs 100 crore, and hopes to sew up the deal by June. The New Delhi-based firm sees a 25-30 per cent organic growth for next five years and acquisitions of up to Rs 100 crore could be funded from its internal resources.

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Banking & Finance

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·Rural Electrification Corporation Ltd (REC) signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with NTPC Tamil Nadu Energy Company Ltd (NTECL), a joint venture company set up by NTPC and the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board (TNEB), to fund a power project in North Chennai. Of the total project cost, 30 per cent is being met by equity and balance through debt.

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Distilleries

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·The country’s largest liquor maker United Spirits is undertaking an aggressive promotion campaign for its recently launched energy drink ‘Romanov Red’.

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The company will invest over Rs 5 crore in the next one year on promotions, as it aims to garner a 15 per cent share in the domestic energy drink market that stands at around 1.5 million cases (of 24 cans) per annum.

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Stay Tuned for More updates 🙂

COMMODITY NEWS DIGEST

• Farmers raising the Rabi crop under Krishna Delta this year will fall due to short of water by 16 tmcft (thousand million cubic feet).

• Government has decided to temporarily wind up its sale of wheat for bulk consumers by March-end in states of Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh.

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• Monsanto’s Bt cotton fails to control pests in 4 Gujarat districts.

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• The validity period for sale and delivery/dispatch of nonlevy sugar has been extended on a weekly basis to the weeks ending March15, 22, 31 and April 7 respectively.

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• The Centre could extend the ban on pulses exports until March 31, 2011 besides allowing duty-free imports for another year.

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• The data received from States reveal that about 278.17 lakh hectares wheat has been sown as compared to last year’s coverage of 275.89 lakh hectares.

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• Rice procurement by state-run agencies has dropped by just 3.25% to 23.8 million tonnes till now in the 2009-10 crop marketing season.

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• British retail sales recovered last month from January’s snow-related slide.

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• Confidence among U.S. consumers unexpectedly declined for a second month in March, 2010.

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Stay Tuned for More updates

CURRENCY FUTURE – BETTER FUTURE FOR CURRENCY TRADERS

There is good news for currency traders who would like to trade in currency futures. After trading in dollar-rupee futures, now corporate and retail investors will also be able to trade in currencies such as Euro, and Japanese Yen.

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Currently dollar-rupee futures are trading on three recognized exchanges, NSE, MCX Stock Exchange and BSE. But the currency derivative is liquid only on the first two bourses, which have together posted an average daily turnover of around Rs. 18,566 crore in December, up from a couple of thousand crore when the currency futures trading commenced in the second-half of 2008.

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NSE commenced currency futures trading in India on 29th August 2008. It has witnessed healthy growth in the turnover and open interest positions during its first completed month of currency futures trading in India.

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Brief of currency future

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Currency futures contracts are those contracts which allow investors to hedge against foreign exchange risk and traders to speculate on the movement in Currency. Since these contracts are marked-to-market daily, investors can exit from their obligation to buy or sell the currency prior to the contract’s delivery date.

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Major Profitable accounts

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The introduction of new currency pairs will go a long way in helping market participants, especially international traders, hedge against cross-currency Volatility and mitigate risk in export and imports across all major traded currencies and will add depth to the exchange-traded currency futures market.

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Along with the above mentioned participants, Currency futures trading in India has generated huge interest among Indian retail investors and traders.

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There is a strong demand for information gathering about the intricacies of currency futures from small investors and enterprises. For instance, entities that have borrowings in Euro will get one more avenue, apart from the over-the-counter market that is dominated by banks, to hedge them against volatility in the 16-nation common currency.

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Due to the transparent mechanism of execution in currency futures trade, increased participation by corporations and high net worth individuals, too, could be witnessed.

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Contract specification

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As in the case of the dollar-rupee futures, the contract size has been fixed at 1,000 units each for pound and euro, and 100,000 units for the yen, across 12 concurrently available contracts, one for each month.

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The contracts, like the existing dollar futures, would be cash-settled in rupees and the settlement price would be at RBI’s reference rate for all the four currencies.

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However, there are different initial margins (cash) that an investor needs to put up for trading each currency on day one and subsequently though this has not been changed for the dollar.

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The market regulator has also decided to modify the calendar spread margin to be applied on the dollar-rupee contracts.

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All the new contracts would be quoted in rupee terms, while the outstanding positions would be in the respective foreign currency terms.

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The maximum maturity of the contract would be 12 months, while all monthly maturities from 1 to 12 months would be made available.

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The contracts would be settled in cash in rupees.

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The client-level position limit has been capped at 6 per cent of the total open interest position.

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Responses:

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Market participants responded enthusiastically to the inclusion of these new currency pairs. The three new currency pairs clocked Rs. 1,98,761 contracts resulting from 7,762 trades at a total value of Rs. 1,277.13-crore on the NSE on day first, which is approximately comes out to be 9.61 percent of the total turnover in value terms. Out of the three new pairs, euro-rupee (EURINR) was the most traded currency pair clocking 1, 82,013 contracts.

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Total contracts and open interest in EUR/INR and GBP/INR:

First Traders inception of currency futures 🙂

The first trade in the new currency pairs was executed by East India Securities, IndusInd Bank executed the first trade amongst banks. Union Bank was the first PSU bank to trade and execute the single largest trade. ICICI Bank and State Bank also participated actively. This market has now become bigger than the cash segment of the equity market, which recorded average volumes of Rs. 20,000 crore last month.

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The beauty of exchange-traded currency futures are that they allow a participant to directly buy or sell the Dollar,Euro,Yen or GBP without having an underlying exposure, so it’s also a view-based market. One can take this opportunity of investing smartly in currency futures and gain by every tick.

Stay Tuned for More updates 🙂

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Note : For More Latest Industry, Stock Market and Economy News and Updates, please click here

WEEKLY Update 8th – 12th March

Here we bring you the weekly overview of the Indian as well as of the Global economy and latest global business and industry updates.

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Markets continued to build on the gains that came in the post budget week. Investors seem to have overcome the worry factors like domestic fiscal deficit & concerns over Euro Zone.

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Even the sudden burst of buying by the foreign institutional investors reflects the confidence  in the domestic economy. Food price index rose 17.87% in the 12 months to 20 February 2010, faster than the annual rise of 17.58% in the previous week but is expected to come down on the likelihood of good harvest going ahead.

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On the external economy front, India’s imports posted a strong growth for the second month running in January, signaling a pickup in domestic demand and investment. Non-oil imports registered a growth of 28.8% in January, while oil imports were up 56% from the year ago period.

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Exports jumped for a third  straight month in January, rising 11.5 per cent from a year earlier as demand  picked up in the United States and other major overseas markets.

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The data cheered the markets & eased some concerns over the optimistic economic growth outlook that came after the third quarter GDP numbers showing growth of 6%. In the nine months to December Indian economy has expanded by 6.7% & in order to meet the CSO expected growth of 7.2% in the current fiscal, it should grow by 8.8% in the last quarter ending March 2010.

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Going forward markets are expected to trade in line with the global markets & will keep a close eye on the IIP numbers that are scheduled to be announced in the coming week. However markets may face liquidity pressure with approximately 22,000 crore going out from the banking system last week & another 12,000 crore expected to go out by the week ending 13th march as a result of hike in Cash reserve ratio by 75 bps by RBI.

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Another liquidity squeeze would be from the corporate in the system as the last tranche of Advance tax is approaching i.e. 15th March. Above all the expected rush of new & follow on public offering in the near term is expected to put a continuous pressure on the liquidity front.

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The week gone by saw one of the strongest rallies in stock markets across the world which goes to show that bulls are still strong and a lot of money lying in the sidelines enters the market at every fall. Trend of Nifty and Sensex is bullish and Nifty has support between 5030-4950 and Sensex between 16700- 16400 levels. The dollar index is finding a strong resistance between 80-81 levels and if it does not cross this strongly then the rally is expected to continue.

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Commodities rose on benefits of doubt as dollar index is witnessing see saw movements amid some improvement in economic releases. However, there is still some uneasiness, regarding the health of European countries, including Spain. In metals and energy, things look balanced right now. These commodities are expected to trade in a range.

Story of agro commodities is little different.

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Despite fragile outlook, most of commodities prices soared on support at lower level buying and domestic as well as overseas demand.

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Cautious trading is advisable here, especially in spices as they have already witnessed significant upside in last few trading sessions.

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Stay Tuned for More updates

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Note : For More Latest Industry, Stock Market and Economy News and Updates, please click here

Indian Stock Market Reaction To Indian Budget :)

Indian stock markets, reacted positively to the budget, with a benchmark index breaking free to close 237 points higher than its previous weekly close. 🙂

The 30-share sensitive index (Sensex) of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) moved up 237.92 points or 1.47 percent to end Friday at 16,429.55 points, 237 points above its previous weekly close at 16,191.63 points.

The broader S&P CNX Nifty of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) too posted gains to end the week at 4,922.3 points, up 77.4 points or 1.57 percent.

Broader market indices, however, ended the week in the red with the BSE midcap index closing 0.54 percent down and the BSE smallcap index 1.67 percent lower.

“Though it is not possible to keep everyone happy, the finance minister has done a commendable job. This was evident from the way markets reacted to the announcements,” said Jagannadham Thunuguntla, the equity head for brokerage firm SMC Capitals.

“The budget did help in breaking from the side-ways movement, but it is not going to help much going forward. A lot of the budget news has been factored in and one should not expect a major rally,” he added.

The top gainers during the week included Hindalco (up 7.7 percent), Maruti Suzuki (up 6.8 percent), L&T (up 6.2 percent), Hero Honda (up 5.5 percent) and ICICI Bank (up 5 percent).

Among top losers were ITC (down 6.5 percent), Reliance Communications (down 2.8 percent), Tata Power (down 2.2 percent), Hindustan Unilever (down 2.2 percent) and Reliance Industries (down 0.6 percent).

Data with markets watchdog Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) showed that foreign funds were net buyers during the week, having bought scrips worth $313.56 million.

Benchmark indices in the US ended slightly lower this week with Dow Jones industrial average dipping 0.8 percent, the Standard and Poor’s 500 Index 500 down 0.4 percent and the Nasdaq composite falling 0.3 percent.

Points Discussed in Budget :)

Excise duty on silver rose to 10%
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Surcharge on domestic cos reduced to 7.5% from 10%..

Excise duty on oil rose to 10%.

Fiscal deficit will be at 5.5% in 10-11, at 4.8% in 11-12 and 4.1% in 12-13
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Revised income tax slabs 🙂
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Net market borrowing for 2010-11 at Rs 3, 45,010..

Extended 1% interest subsidy scheme for affordable housing.

Rs 5400 cr of funds allocated for urban development..

Defense allocation rose to Rs 147344 cr.

Rs 48000 cr allocated for Bharat Nirman.

Farmer loans extended for 6 months to June 30th 2011.

Allocated Rs1.73 lakh cr for infrastructure..

Agriculture credit flow targets at Rs. 375000cr.

FDI worth $20.9 bn in April to Dec 2009.

Proposed Rs 16500 cr for PSU banks.

Challenge for a 9% growth, need to review stimulus.

Stay Tuned for More updates 🙂

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