Pragmatic Investments

Date: 05 November 2009

Thought for the day

“Nothing happens by itself. It all will come your way once you understand that you have to make it come your way, by your own exertions.”

–Ben Stein

GENERAL

1)India and the European Union may ink a civil nuclear cooperation agreement, but a free trade pact will elude both sides at the India-EU summit scheduled here for Thursday.

Hindu

ECONOMY

2)THE government may issue oil bonds to state-owned oil companies IOC, BPCL and HPCL by the end of December 2009 to compensate them for selling petrol, diesel, kerosene and cooking gas below the cost in the first half of 2009-10, an official close to development said.

ET3)THE finance ministry has firmed up the details of its Budget announcement that listed companies will have to achieve at least 25% public holding in a phased manner, opening up the possibility of a plethora of equity offerings from listed companies. Beginning April 1, 2010, those companies falling short of the required 25% minimum would have to divest at least 5% stake within a year and a similar amount in the following year till they reach the threshold prescribed, a finance ministry official told ET.

ET

CORPORATE / INDUSTRY

4)Tata Steel Ltd, the world’s eight-largest steel maker, expected its European unit Corus to be operating at full capacity by the end of the financial year in March, a top official said on Wednesday. Corus, Europe’s second-largest steel maker, operated at 80 per cent capacity in October, Vice Chairman B Muthuraman told reporters at an industry conference.

BS

MONEY & BANKING

 5)Karvy Private Wealth, the wealth management arm of the Karvy Group, has named K Ramachandran as head of products & investments. Earlier, Ramachandran had worked for Barclays Wealth India as head of investments & product office. Prior to Barclays, he had worked with BNP Paribas as head of its advisory desk, a company press release said.

FE6)The rupee gained by 35 paise against the dollar on Wednesday buoyed by the rally in the domestic equity markets and the dollar’s weakness against other Asian currencies. The domestic currency opened at 47.17 and strengthened to touch an intra-day high of 46.98. It ended the day at 47.05, against the previous close of 47.40/41.

BL7)The public sector banks (PSBs) are giving a tough competition to their private peers, if the second quarter performance of the banks in the current fiscal is anything to go by. The PSBs have showed an increase of 20.1% and 17.5% in their net profit and total income, respectively, as against 17.9% and 3% recorded by the private banks in the second quarter of the fiscal.

FE8)State Bank of India on Wednesday said it did not have any immediate plans to revise its home loan rates, including that of the 8% special scheme originally slated to end this week.

FE

MARKETS

 9)The domestic equity bourses, led by index heavyweights, snapped its six-day loosing streak to post its highest gain in the last five months with the finance minister saying that the government would not withdraw the stimulus package. The 30-share Sensex of the Bombay Stock Exchange(BSE) registered a solid gain of 507.19 points or 3.29% to end the trading session at 15,912.13 points, completely erasing its loss suffered in the previous trading session. On the other hand the broader 50-share Nifty of the National Stock Exchange(NSE) ended the day at 4,710.80 points, up by 3.22% or 146.90 points.

FE10)THE stock price of Pidilite Industries, the market leader in adhesives and sealants in the country, has moved up 43% since July this year. And if the company’s performance in the latest September quarter is any indicator, the stock has the potential to surge further.

ET11)COMPETITION among providers of portfolio management service, or PMS, appears to be intensifying, as they are now focussing on the narrow base of the really wealthy. Even though the rebound in stocks since March presents them with an opportunity to garner a wider client base, PMS providers have become choosy about their client profiles. Many of these money managers to wealthier investors are no longer accepting investments of less than Rs 1 crore in their schemes against a minimum of Rs 10 lakh earlier.

ET

IPO / FPO

12)The initial public offer of agro chemical and pharma company Astec LifeSciences got fully subscribed on Wednesday, the final day of issue. The issue received total bids for over 87.61 lakh shares from investors, about 1.17 times more than 75 lakh equities on offer, as per the latest data with NSE.

FE13)The follow-on public offer (FPO) of the power sector financier Rural Electrification Corporation(REC) is likely to hit the market by February next year.

BS

COMMODITIES

 14)Gold hit record highs above $1,095 an ounce on Wednesday as dollar weakness added to momentum lent to the market by India’s purchase of 200 tonne of gold from the IMF to push prices through key technical resistance levels.

FE15)Copper rose 2.6 per cent on Wednesday as the dollar fell ahead of a policy decision by US Federal Reserve later in the day that is also expected to give clues on the state of the world’s largest economy. By 1103 GMT, copper for three-month delivery on the London Metal Exchange rose to $6,595 a tonne from $6,460 at the close on Wednesday and compared with a session high at $6,625.

BL16)Continuing its upward trend, turmeric price at Erode market, one of the biggest in the country, soared to a new high of Rs 12,700 per quintal on Wednesday. Nearly 3,000 bags of turmeric arrived at the market for sale but because of the high price very few bags were sold, market sources said.

FE17)Shortfall in Chinese chilli crop is likely to add fuel to the domestic markets and help in better exports. Traders said Chilli prices in India are already expected to cross the previous high and touch record levels because of shortfall in production and lower inventory.

FE18)Guarseed and gum prices are likely to rule firm until the middle of this month and further movement of the prices in these commodities will depend on the demand-supply situation.

BL

COMMUNICATIONS

 19)TOP telecom players such as Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Essar, Reliance Communications and state-run BSNL could benefit from a government move to speed up a relief package that will ease some burden off the sector saddled with shrinking revenues and margins triggered by a raging tariff war. The department of telecom(DoT) will seek a fast-track approval from the finance ministry to slash the annual licence fee by up to a third for telecom operators with large net- work presence.

ET20)Amidst the raging tariff war leading to telecom stocks getting hammered on the bourses, the country’s total subscriber base crossed the 500-million mark in September, 15 month ahead of the targeted schedule of December, 2010.

FE

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

 21)Europe continued to be muted during the September quarter even as the large Indian IT vendors reported better-than-expected numbers for the period, largely due to the ‘lag effect’ of the global downturn. However, the vendors expect some volume growth from the European market over the next few quarters as the situation is beginning to stablise and client activity has increased. The crisis had hit Europe late and, therefore, recovery is also expected to be late, the IT services companies added.

BL22)L&T Infotech, part of Rs 40,000-crore engineering & construction major Larsen & Toubro(L&T), is in advanced talks to acquire a majority shareholding in the country’s sixth-largest software firm, Patni Computer Services.

FE

INTERNATIONAL

 23)Crude oil futures extended gains after a US government report showed an unexpected decline in inventories. Supplies dropped 3.94 million barrels to 335.9 million in the week ended October 30, the Energy Department said on Wednesday in a weekly report. Crude oil for December delivery rose $1.08, or 1.4 per cent, to $80.68 a barrel at 10:35 a.m. on the New York Mercantile Ex- change.

BL24)Federal Reserve officials on Thursday may indicate their $1 tril- lion injection into the economy is helping to revive growth without requiring an increase in interest rates from near zero, economists said.

FE

FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE BROWSE THROUGH THE FOLLOWING SITES.

Karvy Consultants Ltd www.karvy.com
 www.khojhyderabad.com
 www.indiacorporateadvisor.com
 www.karvycomtrade.com (Commodities)
KARVY Global Services Ltd www.KARVYGlobal.com
KARVY Realty (India) Limited www.karvyrealty.com
Economic Times www.economictimes.com
The Financial Express www.financialexpress.com
Business Line www.businessline.in
Business Standard www.business-standard.com
The Times of India www.timesofindia.com
The Hindu www.hindu.com
Deccan Chronicle www.deccan.com
The New Indian Express www.newindpress.com