Sensex, Nifty fall ahead of exit polls

Finally, BSE Sensex closed at 20,708 down 146 points, while NSE Nifty closed at 6168 down 33 points over the previous close.

The Indian equity market extended their losing streak to the second consecutive trading session amid selling pressure at 6200 levels. Traders and investors remained cautious ahead of the exit poll results which would be announced later in the day and the outcome of the actual poll results will come on Sunday, Dec 8.

The HSBC Services Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI), may have nudged moderately higher on MoM basis, however, the index registered its fifth successive monthly contraction. The Service PMI inched up to 47.2 in November from 47.1 in October. n index value of below 50 indicates contraction.

Today’s decline was led by the realty, FMCG, auto and the capital goods stocks. The midcap and the smallcap stocks which were seen outperforming the benchmark indices for the past few trading sessions also witnessed some profit booking. 

SAIL hikes prices of some long products by Rs 500 per tonne

Steel Authority of India (SAIL), the country’s largest steel producer, has hiked prices of some long products by Rs 500 per tonne for December. Back in October this year, the company hiked flat product price by average Rs 1250 tonne. It also upped the long product price by Rs 500 per tonne.

SAIL is India's largest steel producing company. With a turnover of Rs 49,350 crore, the company is among the five Maharatnas of the country's Central Public Sector Enterprises. SAIL has five integrated steel plants, three special plants, and one subsidiary in different parts of the country.

Eicher Motors to invest Rs 700 crore in next 12-18 months: Report

Eicher Motors is reportedly planning to invest Rs 700 crore in next 12-18 months. The investment will be done as part of Joint Venture (JV) with Swedish Co Volvo. The company’s investment currently focuses on new part distribution centre.

Further, the company has invested heavily in new product, including new engines. The company is also planning to manufacture 1,00,000 trucks and busses from Pithmpur.

Eicher Motors is one of the leading manufacturers of commercial vehicle. It has manufacturing facilities located in Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, and Haryana.

Amtek Auto rises on the buzz of acquiring 13.23 lakh shares of JMT Auto

Amtek Auto is currently trading at Rs. 73.10, up by 1.80 points or 2.52% from its previous closing of Rs. 71.30 on the BSE.

The scrip opened at Rs. 71.50 and has touched a high and low of Rs. 74.60 and Rs. 71.00 respectively. So far 58588 shares were traded on the counter.

The BSE group 'B' stock of face value Rs. 2 has touched a 52 week high of Rs. 94.70 on 26-Dec-2012 and a 52 week low of Rs. 58.65 on 06-Aug-2013.

Last one week high and low of the scrip stood at Rs. 75.90 and Rs. 67.75 respectively. The current market cap of the company is Rs. 1600.33 crore.

The promoters holding in the company stood at 47.99% while Institutions and Non-Institutions held 44.61% and 7.40% respectively.

Amtek Auto has reportedly acquired 13.23 lakh shares of JMT Auto through the open market route. The shares were purchased on an average price of Rs 148.70 valuing the transaction to Rs 19.68 crore. On the other hand, Rajeev Singh Duggal has sold 13.10 lakh shares of JMT Auto at Rs 148.70 through the open market route.

JMT Auto is one of the leading Auto component manufacturers in Eastern region. The company had identified Transmission Components as its key business area and acquired core competency in manufacturing products.

Reliance Infrastructure gets nod for scheme of merger

Reliance Infrastructure’s board of directors at its meeting held on November 11, 2013, has approved a scheme of merger of Western Region Transmission (Gujarat) (WRTGL) and Western Region Transmission (Maharashtra) (WRTML), wholly owned subsidiaries of Reliance Infrastructure (Rlnfra) with RInfra, subject to requisite approvals.

Reliance Infrastructure is the largest power distribution licensee in Mumbai, with 25 years license to distribute electricity in its licensed distribution areas spread over 400 Sq. Kms. in the suburbs and surrounding areas of Mumbai, and supplying power to around 29 lakh consumers.

Godrej Properties buys 49% stake in GDPL

Godrej Properties has given exit to Red Fort by purchasing its 49% stake in the equity share capital of its subsidiary, Godrej Developers (GDPL). Consequently, GDPL has become wholly owned subsidiary of the company with effect from December 04, 2013.

The company has taken this step in terms of the agreement with Red Fort India Real Estate Babur (Red Fort) for Project Godrej Genesis at Kolkata.

Godrej Properties is a realty firm of Godrej group, promoted by Godrej Industries and Godrej & Boyce Manufacturing Company. It is one of the leading real estate development companies in India based in Mumbai, Maharashtra.

Jyothy Laboratories raises Rs 262.72 crore through preferential issue

Jyothy Laboratories has allotted 1.50 crore equity shares of Rs 1 each to Sahyadri Agencies on preferential basis. The company has raised Rs 262.72 crore by issuing shares at a price of Rs 175.15. Consequent to the aforesaid allotment, the paid-up capital of the Company has increased from Rs 16.60 crore to Rs 18.10 crore.

Jyothy Laboratories is one of the leading players in the mid and economy segments of the FMCG industry having its presence in Fabricare (Detergents/soaps for clothes), Household Insecticide (Repellent coils/liquid or spray) Dishwashing products/Toilet cleaners, Personal care (Toilet soap) and Others (Incense sticks).

JSPL hikes prices of steel plates by Rs 500-1000 per tonne

Jindal Steel and Power (JSPL) has raised the prices of steel plates by Rs 500-1000 per tonne. The company has also increased prices of rebars by about Rs 1,000 per tonne.

Earlier in September, the company had increased the price of steel plates by about Rs 2,500 per tonne and of wire rod and rebars by about Rs 2,000 and Rs 1,500 per tonne respectively.

JSPL is a part of Jindal Group and is a leading player in Steel, Power, Mining, Oil & Gas and Infrastructure. The company produces economical and efficient steel and power through backward integration from its own captive coal and iron-ore mines and passes on the benefits to its customers.

Bharti Airtel surges as its arm plans to mop-up Euro 750 million via Reg S bonds

Bharti Airtel’s wholly owned subsidiary -- Bharti Airtel International (Netherlands) BV -- is planning to raise Euro 750 million by way of 5 -year Reg S bonds. The final pricing of the issue has been set at 5-year mid swap plus 300 basis points. The company will use the entire fund raised by the issue to refinance its existing debt.

The joint bookrunners to the issue are Standard Chartered, Barclays, BNP, Deutsch Bank, JPMorgan, and UBS. The company received “Baa3” rating for the bonds issue from Moody’s Investors Services, while Fitch Ratings assigned a “BBB-” to the same.

In March this year, Bharti had raised $1.5 billion by issuing foreign currency notes in two trenches. In the first round, it had raised $1 billion by issuing Reg S bonds with a coupon rate of 5.125% maturing in 2023. And in the second round within a month, it had raised $500 million primarily to pay off high interest loans and fund capital expenditure requirements.

Bharti Airtel is a leading integrated telecommunications company with operations in 20 countries across Asia and Africa. The company ranks amongst the top 5 mobile service providers globally in terms of subscribers.

Rupee recovers from early fall on good Services PMI data

Indian rupee after a soft start has bounced back in tandem with the recovery in the equity markets. Earlier, the currency extending its last day’s fall, made a lower start on increased demand of the US currency from banks and importers, but improved after the Services PMI data came a little better than the previous month at 47.2. In the global markets, while the major Asian currencies were trading flat, the yen surged higher against dollar ahead of US jobs data due later in the week. Meanwhile, the euro was trading higher from its strongest level in a month before European Central Bank officials gather for a policy meeting tomorrow.

The partially convertible currency is currently trading at 62.36, almost unchanged from its previous close of 62.35 on Tuesday. The currency has touched a high and low of 62.55 and 62.33 respectively. The Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) reference rate for the dollar stood at 62.34 and for Euro stood at 84.45 on December 03, 2013. While, the RBI’s reference rate for the Yen stood at 60.38, the reference rate for the Great Britain Pound (GBP) stood at 102.0639. The reference rates are based on 12 noon rates of a few select banks in Mumbai.

SAIL rises on commencing production from newly rebuilt Coke Ovens Battery at DSP

Steel Authority of India (SAIL) is currently trading at Rs. 69.15, up by 0.40 points or 0.58% from its previous closing of Rs. 68.75 on the BSE.

The scrip opened at Rs. 68.75 and has touched a high and low of Rs. 69.80 and Rs. 68.70 respectively. So far 91419 shares were traded on the counter.

The BSE group 'A' stock of face value Rs. 10 has touched a 52 week high of Rs. 101.60 on 07-Jan-2013 and a 52 week low of Rs. 37.65 on 07-Aug-2013.

Last one week high and low of the scrip stood at Rs. 69.80 and Rs. 65.75 respectively. The current market cap of the company is Rs. 28603.89 crore.

The promoters holding in the company stood at 80.00% while Institutions and Non-Institutions held 16.41% and 3.58% respectively.

Steel Authority of India, the country’s largest steel producer has commenced the production from the newly rebuilt Coke Ovens Battery No. 2 at Durgapur Steel Plant (DPS), a unit of the company, on December 02, 2013.

Rebuilt at a total cost of Rs 213 crore, the battery no. 2 has several advanced technological features leading to both qualitative and quantitative improvements in coke making from this battery. The rebuilt Coke Ovens Battery No. 2 has 78 ovens with each oven of volume 23.8 cubic meter (length 13.59 meter and height 4.45 meter). Moreover, several advanced pollution control measures, which include leak proof doors, stationary high pressure water jet cleaner among others have been incorporated in this battery.

The rebuilding of the battery is a part of the modernization and expansion of SAIL DSP under its ongoing capacity enhancement from the present level of 1.60 miilion tonnes of saleable steel to 2.12 million tonne at a total cost of Rs 2,875 crore. Post expansion, DSP is expected to improve the finished component in its products basket from the present level of 36% to 64%.

HDFC MF buys 1.71% stake in VST Tillers Tractors

HDFC Mutual Fund (MF) has acquired 1.71% stake in VST Tillers Tractors through open market. The MF firm has bought a total of 147,587 shares of the company for Rs 8.80 crore through two bulk deals on the NSE and BSE.

Of total, the HDFC MF has bought 72,508 shares at Rs 596 on the BSE, while HDFC Trustee Co. -- HDFC Prudence Fund -- has acquired 75,079 shares at Rs 596 on the NSE.

VST Tillers Tractors was incorporated in technical collaboration and joint venture with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Mitsubishi Corporation, Japan for the manufacture of Power Tillers and Diesel Engines.

RCom surges on hiking prices of 3G data packs by 27%

RCom is currently trading at Rs. 141.05, up by 1.50 points or 1.11% from its previous closing of Rs. 139.55 on the BSE.

The scrip opened at Rs. 139.60 and has touched a high and low of Rs. 141.30 and Rs. 139.40 respectively. So far 1, 34,000 shares were traded on the counter.

The BSE group 'A' stock of face value Rs. 5 has touched a 52 week high of Rs. 164.45 on 20-Sep-2013 and a 52 week low of Rs. 50.25 on 26-Mar-2013.

Last one week high and low of the scrip stood at Rs. 143.75 and Rs. 134.00 respectively. The current market cap of the company is Rs. 29,092 crore.

The promoters holding in the company stood at 67.80% while Institutions and Non-Institutions held 20.43% and 11.49% respectively.

Reliance Communications (RCom) has hiked its 3G data prices by around 27% and the new rates have become effective from December 1, 2013 for new connections, while those subscribers on the old plan will continue with their old rates. This move comes four months after the operator unveiled its plan making its 3G cheaper than 2G, for both pre-paid and post-paid users.

As per the increased rates, the company’s Rs 123 pack which came with 1 GB data, will now provide only 400 MB. The same plan will now yield 60 per less data. The subscriber will have to shell out Rs 156 for 1 GB data. Moreover, its Rs 246 pack which earlier allowed downloads worth 2 GB, will now allow only 1.5 GB.

The company reported 800% rise in its net profit at Rs 81 crore for the second quarter ended September 30, 2013 as compared to Rs 9 crore for the same quarter in the previous year. Total income of the company increased by 13.50% at Rs 3472 crore for quarter under review as compared to Rs 3059 crore for the quarter ended September 30, 2012.  

EGoM approves telecom M&A guidelines

The empowered group of ministers (EGoM) on telecom, paving way for big ticket mergers and consolidation in the telecom sector has approved the 'mergers and acquisitions’ (M&A) guidelines and allowed an entity formed by merger between two or more mobile service providers to hold up to 50 percent of the market share in a circle.

Under the new guidelines, an operator will be entitled to only one block of spectrum which had been allotted at an administrative price or without an auction process. The merged entity would need to pay the market price for any additional bandwidth beyond that one block that means if a dual-technology holder acquires a single technology operator or a single technology operator acquires a dual-technology holder, the resultant entity would eventually have three blocks of spectrum and would have to pay a market price for two blocks. The government has also decided to allow a merged entity to hold up to two blocks of 3G and broadband wireless access (BWA) spectrum as against one block each currently

The empowered group of ministers,  headed by finance minister P Chidambaram also decided that a total of 403 Mhz of spectrum worth Rs 36,000 crore be auctioned in the 1800 Mhz band in the auctions scheduled for January. All these decision would now be forwarded to the Cabinet for final approval.

Syndicate Bank to raise Rs 200 crore via issue of preference share

Public sector lender Syndicate Bank is planning to raise Rs 200 crore by issuing preferential shares to government of India. In this regard, the bank has constituted a committee of directors to create, offer, issue and allot equity shares for cash at a price to be determined in accordance with Regulation 76 (1) of Sebi ICDR Regulations.

The committee will also take steps to convene an extraordinary general meeting of shareholders for obtaining their consent for the proposed issue of preferential shares.

Earlier, the company received board’s approval for issue of equity shares of the bank with a face alue of Rs 10 each aggregating Rs 200 crore

NTPC surges on plan to add 14,000 MW to its total capacity by 2016-17

The promoters holding in the company stood at 75.00% while Institutions and Non-Institutions held 20.43% and 4.57% respectively.

With an aim to become a 128,000 MW utility in coming years, NTPC will add another 14,000 MW to its total capacity by the end of 2016-17. The installed capacity of NTPC at present is 42,500 MW which includes the capacity addition of 10,000 MW in the last three years.

The power company has registered a growth of 4.49% of power in this fiscal year in comparison to the last fiscal. The power production last year through the NTPC run power plants was 222.068 billion units which increased to 232.028 billion units.

The coal stations of the company also registered a growth of 6.67%. In the last fiscal the production from coal station was 199.054 units which have reached 212.39 units this fiscal. On the front of plant load factor, NTPC has scored over other power producers. The Plant Load Factor (PLF) at the coal station run by NTPC on an average was 87.63% while the national average of PLF was 69.93%.

Asian Paints gains on hiking industrial paints’ prices by 10%

Asian Paints is currently trading at Rs. 505.35, up by 1.10 points or 0.22% from its previous closing of Rs. 504.25 on the BSE.

The scrip opened at Rs. 507.45 and has touched a high and low of Rs. 507.90 and Rs. 505.15 respectively. So far 4,613 shares were traded on the counter.

The BSE group 'A' stock of face value Rs. 1 has touched a 52 week high of Rs. 560.00 on 08-Nov-2013 and a 52 week low of Rs. 376.35 on 28-Aug-2013.

Last one week high and low of the scrip stood at Rs. 514.70 and Rs. 500.10 respectively. The current market cap of the company is Rs. 48,458.00 crore.

The promoters holding in the company stood at 52.79% while Institutions and Non-Institutions held 27.35% and 19.86% respectively.

Asian Paints has hiked industrial paints’ prices by 10%. The paint maker has hiked prices to offset inflationary pressure on industrial products. Earlier in August, the company had increased prices in its decorative paint segment by 1.2%. Prior to that, the company increased prices in May and July by 4.15% and 2.6%, respectively.

Asian Paints is India’s largest paint company and Asia’s third largest paint company. The company along with its subsidiaries has operations in 20 countries across the world and 28 paint manufacturing

ICRA assigns ‘BBB’ rating to NCD programme of Sakthi Finance

Credit rating agency, ICRA has assigned ‘BBB’ rating with a stable outlook for Rs 200 crore Non Convertible Debenture (NCD) Programme proposed to be made by Sakthi Finance. Instruments with this rating are considered to have moderate degree of safety regarding timely servicing of financial obligations and carry moderate credit risk.

Sakthi Finance provides a wide variety of loans for cars, commercial vehicles, plant machinery and equipment are available and it is one of the first companies to introduce used vehicle financing.

Markets to get a soft start tailing the weak global cues

The Indian markets breaking their three days gaining streak turned lower in last session on getting weak core sector data and traders opted to book profit after the recent rallies. Today, the start is likely to remain soft tailing the weakness in the global markets. Traders will also be concerned with the report that Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) into the country declined by about 38 percent, year-on-year, to $2.91 billion in September. However, industry body Assocham has said that narrowing of the current account deficit will help arrest depreciation of the rupee and ease inflation concerns and that may soothe some nerves. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has said that market-based pricing and technology are essential as India is expected to become world's third largest energy consumer in seven years. He also said that to bridge the gap between supply and demand, the government is encouraging domestic and global companies to explore onshore and offshore regions. There will be some buzz in investment and infrastructure companies, as the RBI has allowed core investment companies to raise external commercial borrowing (ECB) for projects floated as special purpose vehicle in order to strengthen the flow of resources into the infrastructure sector.

The US markets continued their weak trend on Tuesday on concern about the outlook for the Federal Reserve’s stimulus program and trade remained subdued with traders looking ahead to the release of a slew of data. The Asian markets outside China have made a soft start and some of the indices are down by over a percent with Japanese markets losing over two percent after the yen strengthened.

Back home, Indian equity benchmarks, snapping three days winning streak, ended the session slightly in the red on Tuesday with investors turning cautious after robust US manufacturing data yet again fuelled fears that the US Federal Reserve may scale back its stimulus sooner than anticipated. Markets exhibited lack luster trade during the day as sentiments remained dampened after the output of eight core sector industries contracted by 0.6 percent in October due to poor showing by coal, oil and gas sectors. The output of eight infrastructure industries in April-October was a mere 2.6 percent against 6.8 percent in the same period of the last fiscal. However, losses remain capped as some support came in from good economic data of trade deficit. India’s current-account deficit shrank to a four-year low to $5.2 billion or 1.2% of gross domestic product (GDP), in the September quarter, sharply lower from the $21 billion deficit recorded a year ago period. Meanwhile, Finance minister P Chidambaram said that the economy is expected to grow by 5% in 2013-14 and the fiscal and current account deficits would be contained. Meanwhile, global cues remained choppy with European markets trading lower in early deals, while most of the Asian equity benchmarks ended the session in the red. Back home, stocks related to auto space witnessed selling as after showing some signs of revival in September and October during the festive season, auto sales dipped again in November. Moreover, shares related to banking counter too hit rock bottom after RBI proposed increased capital requirements and intense regulation for ‘too  big to fail’ kind of banks. Further, RBI also issued updated guidelines for stress-testing of banks which will be effective from April. Telecom stocks viz. Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular and RCom too edged lower after EGoM meeting scheduled to discuss the much-awaited M&A guidelines in the telecom sector was reportedly postponed. Bucking the trend, metal stocks extended Monday’s gains triggered by data showing that manufacturing activity in China continued to grow last month. Moreover, capital goods stocks too edged higher led by L&T which gained after its construction division secured orders valued at Rs 1471 crore across various business segments in November and December 2013. Finally, the BSE Sensex lost 43.09 points or 0.21%, to settle at 20854.92, while the CNX Nifty declined by 16.00 points or 0.26% to settle at 6,201.85.