Oil falls to near $102 amid Gaza peace efforts

The price of oil retreated to near $102 per barrel on Wednesday amid a new push for a cease-fire between Israel and Palestine and after Europe imposed additional sanctions on Russia that fell short of a heavy hit. 

US benchmark oil for September delivery was down 34 cents to $102.07 a barrel at 0850 GMT in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract slipped 47 cents to $102.39 on Tuesday. 

Brent crude for September delivery, a benchmark for international oils, was up 9 cents to $107.43 on the ICE exchange in London. 

The price of oil has been kept high after a civilian jetliner was last week shot out of the sky over part of eastern Ukraine controlled by pro-Russian separatists and as Israel's invasion of the Gaza Strip added to risks of instability in the Middle East. 

On Wednesday, US Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Tel Aviv, seeking to renew a push for a cease-fire after an earlier proposal by Egypt was rejected. 

More than 630 Palestinians and about 30 Israelis have been killed in the violence. A Hamas rocket exploded Tuesday near Israel's main airport, prompting a ban on flights from the US and many from Europe and Canada as aviation authorities responded to the shock of seeing a civilian jetliner shot down over Ukraine. 

The European Union slapped new sanctions on Russian individuals after a meeting on Tuesday. But the bloc didn't impose penalties that would disrupt energy supplies from Russia, waiting for a clearer picture of last week's downing of a Malaysian jetliner, which killed 298 people. 

YES Bank Q1 profit up 10% to Rs 439.5 cr, misses forecast

Net interest income, the difference between interest earned and interest expended, grew 13 percent to Rs 745.3 crore in April-June quarter of current financial year 2014-15 from Rs 659 crore in corresponding quarter of last fiscal.

Private sector lender  YES Bank missed street expectations with the first quarter (April-June) net profit rising 9.7 percent on yearly basis to Rs 439.5 crore despite fall in provisions. Lower other income and higher operating expenses impacted bottomline.Net interest income, the difference between interest earned and interest expended, grew 13 percent to Rs 745.3 crore in April-June quarter of current financial year 2014-15 from Rs 659 crore in corresponding quarter of last fiscal. Other income during the quarter declined 3.7 percent to Rs 425.6 crore while operating expenses jumped 25 percent to Rs 526.7 crore compared to same quarter last fiscal and due to which, operating profit fell 5.3 percent year-on-year to Rs 644.3 crore with the cost to income ratio at 45 percent. Provisions in the quarter ended June 2014 stood at Rs 23.7 crore, down 67.2 percent and 75.5 percent compared to Q4FY14 and Q1FY14, respectively. Asset quality slightly weakened on sequential basis with the gross non-performing assets (NPA) climbed (up 11 basis points Y-o-Y) to 0.33 percent in June quarter from 0.31 percent in March quarter 2014 and net NPA increasing to 0.07 percent from 0.05 percent Q-o-Q and 0.03 percent Y-o-Y. In absolute terms, gross NPA jumped 12.2 percent quarter-on-quarter (up 88.7 percent year-on-year) to Rs 197.96 crore and net NPA shot up 64.2 percent on sequential basis (up 254.4 percent on yearly basis) to Rs 42.81 crore in the quarter gone by. Net interest margin of the bank was unchanged at 3 percent during the quarter compared to previous quarter. Analysts were expecting some improvement in margin on account of QIP money. The bank raised Rs 2,942.1 crore via qualified institutional placement (QIP) in early June. Current account and saving account (CASA) grew 29 percent Y-o-Y to Rs 16,974 crore as on June 2014. "CASA ratio improves steadily to 22.3 percent from 20.2 percent a year ago. Saving deposits posted healthy growth of 43.8 percent Y-o-Y," said the company in its filing. Total advances during the quarter jumped 23.2 percent to Rs 58,988.6 crore while deposits soared 16.6 percent to Rs 76,102.8 crore compared to same quarter last year. YES Bank said total restructured advances stood at Rs 113.1 crore as on June 2014 (0.19 percent of gross advances), down from Rs 144.2 crore in March 2014 and Rs 139.5 crore in June 2013, adding there has been no sale to asset restructuring companies during the quarter. Capital adequacy ratio (as per Basel III norms) improved to 17.6 percent in June quarter against 14.4 percent in March quarter and 15.4 percent in same quarter last year.

MRF declares interim dividend

MRF Ltd has informed BSE that the Company has fixed August 07, 2014 as the Record Date for the purpose of payment of Interim Dividend.

MRF Ltd has informed BSE that the Board of Directors of the Company at its meeting held on July 23, 2014, inter alia, has declared Interim Dividend of Rs. 3/- per equity share for the year ending September 30, 2014. Interim Dividend declared will be paid on or after August 18, 2014.

JSW Energy Q1 PAT up 51% at Rs 325 cr

The company’s total income rose 24 percent at Rs 2,558 crore against Rs 2,058.3 crore, Q-o-Q.

Power producer JSW Energy   reported a growth of 86 percent in its Q1FY15 (April-June) consolidated net profit at Rs 325 crore compared to Rs 174.6 crore in previous quarter. During the same period, total income grew 24 percent to Rs 2,558 crore from Rs 2,058.3 crore. Year-on-year growth in bottomline and topline was 51 percent and 3 percent, respectively. Operating profit (EBITDA) jumped 31 percent sequentially to Rs 906 crore and margin expanded 180 basis points to 35.4 percent in the quarter gone by. Tax expenses shot up to Rs 124.8 crore from Rs 64.33 crore, Q-o-Q.

Reserve Bank of India to identify six systemically important banks

The Reserve Bank of India has said that up to six banks will be designated as systemically important, or SIBs, for the domestic financial market and will need to have higher capital than their peers to prevent the financial system from collapsing if there is a crisis.

The central bank said it would now go about identifying these banks which are too big to fail and would release a list of names in August 2015, according to a report uploaded on its website on Tuesday evening.

Banking regulators across the world are tightening capital norms for banks and other key financial institutions as the lack of capital was seen as a root cause of the 2008 credit crisis that threatened to bring down the global financial system. 

Although bankers were able to beat back tough capital norms in some instances, overall the regulators have managed to tighten a bit.

"Foreign banks are quite active in the derivatives market, and the specialised services provided by these banks might not be easily substituted by domestic banks," said RBI. "It is, therefore, appropriate to include a few large foreign banks also in the sample of banks to compute the systemic importance."

Dollar firms, euro cracks under rates pressure

The dollar held close to a six-week peak against a basket of currencies in Asian trade on Wednesday, as the euro edged down to touch a fresh 2014 low on the diverging interest rate outlook for the US and euro zone. 

The dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of six major rivals, was steady on the day at 80.773, not far from a Tuesday high of 80.837 touched on expectations that higher US interest rates are on the horizon. 

Data issued on Tuesday showed US inflation was 0.3 per cent in June, in line with most analysts' forecasts, though core inflation, excluding volatile food and energy prices, was just 0.1 per cent, about half of what analysts had forecast. 

Despite the weaker-than-expected core inflation reading, market expectations that the US Federal Reserve is on track to continue tapering its bond purchase programme and then raise interest rates in the latter half of 2015 remained intact. 

The euro languished at multi-month lows against many of its peers, having moved decisively lower in the previous session with an eye-catching fall in the Swiss franc. The weaker euro dovetailed with expectations for the European Central Bank to ease policy further. 

The common currency was treading water at $1.3465 after touching a fresh eight-month low against of $1.3458 earlier, while it also slipped about 0.4 per cent against the Australian dollar to A$1.4271. 

The European Union threatened Russia on Tuesday with harsher sanctions over Ukraine, while fighting around Gaza continued. 

The high-flying pound edged up about 0.1 per cent to $1.7073 , aiming back towards a six-year top of $1.7192 set last week. 

The Australian dollar added about 0.4 per cent to buy $0.9432 , after spiking to a nearly two-week high of $0.9439 on surprisingly high core inflation figures. 

iClinic Healthcare set to raise 25 crores

iClinic Healthcare Pvt. Ltd. is in aggressive talks with leading private equity companies and individuals to raise the first tranche

In its bid to energize the online health segment in the country, particularly in semi-urban and rural areas wherein accessibility to specialized health care is a major challenge, iClinic Healthcare Pvt. Ltd. is in aggressive talks with leading private equity companies and individuals to raise the first tranche to the tune of Rs 25 crore. iClinic Healthcare aims to provide specialist care to patients in semi urban towns by setting up centres from where they may contact specialists and super specialists in metro locations with the help of the local doctor and consult them for diagnosis, advice and treatment. The consultation will happen over an online video call with easy exchange of the patient’s reports over the web and will result in a specialists’s consultation summary and a prescription. These data will also be saved for future references. Most importantly, the unique model of iClinic is to reach out to the upcountry areas through Assisted Remote Consults using 3G technology, providing super specialty healthcare services in areas where specialist healthcare is suspect or is unheard of!

Apple Q3 net profit at $7.7 bn

Apple’s board of directors has declared a cash dividend of $.47 per share of the Company’s common stock.

Apple announced financial results for its fiscal 2014 third quarter ended June 28, 2014. The Company posted quarterly revenue of $37.4 bn and quarterly net profit of $7.7 bn, or $1.28 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $35.3 billion and net profit of $6.9 billion, or $1.07 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 39.4 percent compared to 36.9 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 59 percent of the quarter’s revenue. Apple’s board of directors has declared a cash dividend of $.47 per share of the Company’s common stock. The dividend is payable on August 14, 2014, to shareholders of record as of the close of business on August 11, 2014. “Our record June quarter revenue was fueled by strong sales of iPhone and Mac and the continued growth of revenue from the Apple ecosystem, driving our highest EPS growth rate in seven quarters,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “We are incredibly excited about the upcoming releases of iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite, as well as other new products and services that we can’t wait to introduce.” “We generated $10.3 billion in cash flow from operations and returned over $8 billion in cash to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases during the June quarter,” said Luca Maestri, Apple’s CFO. “We have now taken action on over $74 billion of our $130 billion capital return program with six quarters remaining to its completion.”

TCS hits all-time high, crosses Rs 5 lakh cr market cap

Shares of  Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), the top software services exporter, touched a record high of Rs 2,579.65, up nearly 2 percent and crossed the market capitalisation mark of Rs 5 lakh crore on Wednesday, the highest among listed Indian companies. Currently it is the only company that has market cap of more than Rs 5 lakh crore-mark followed by  ONGC (Rs 348,251.23 crore),  Reliance Industries (Rs 331,225.60 crore),  ITC (Rs 278,291.27 crore) and  Coal India (Rs 242,706.30 crore). Moreover, its current market capitalisation of Rs 504,666.26 crore is higher than the combined market cap of  Infosys (Rs 190,215.73 crore),  HCL Technologies (Rs 108,230.21 crore),  Wipro (Rs 139,470.18 crore) and  Tech Mahindra (Rs 50,485.91 crore). The stock has been in strong traction, rallying more than 8 percent in four consecutive sessions from last Friday, especially after it reported stellar performance in April-June quarter earnings that beat street expectations on every parameter. India's largest software services exporter's dollar revenues were higher by 5.5 percent sequentially at USD 3,694 million driven by a strong volume growth of 5.7 percent, which was quite better than its closest peer Infosys' 2 percent. Consolidated net profit was Rs 5,057 crore, down 4.5 percent as against CNBC-TV18 poll estimates of 11 percent degrowth. After the strong start to the current financial year, brokerages remained bullish on the stock. Macquarie on last Friday said it reiterated outperform rating on the stock with a 12-month price target of Rs 2,700 with large deal wins as catalyst. "Revenue growth from TCS in the last three years has been driven across verticals and service lines. This quarter was no different and gives credence to TCS’ ability to sustain its leadership in the space," it said in a report. It says that this quarter the big lever that helped the company was utilisation (now at 85 percent), and TCS management is comfortable with that.

ABB Q2 PAT seen up 33%, low order book may impact revenue

ABB India , the subsidiary of Swiss power equipment major ABB, will announce its second quarter (April-June CY14) earnings today. Analysts expect a moderate revenue growth during the quarter led by the products division and weak order intake in the last few quarters. Total income is expected to rise by 3 percent to Rs 1,804 crore in June quarter from Rs 1,751 crore in same quarter last year while profit after tax may grow 32.7 percent on yearly basis to Rs 52.6 crore in second quarter of current calendar year 2014 led by operational performance, according to CNBC-TV18 poll estimates. Operating profit (EBITDA) may increase 17.2 percent on yearly basis to Rs 126 crore in April-June quarter and margin is likely to expand 80 basis points to 7 percent in the quarter gone by that will be closely watched by street as in last couple of quarters, the company had been reporting margin expansion led by benefits of increased localisation. ABB continued to focus on increased localisation and cost optimisation, whereby its direct raw material costs dipped to 68 percent of revenue, from a peak of 81 percent in Q4CY10. Key factors to watch out for are short cycle orders, pace of project execution, continued improvement in EBITDA margin and management commentary on investment revival.

Gold rebounds on buying by jewellers; silver ends higher

Gold rebounded by Rs 160 to Rs 28,360 per 10 grams in the national capital today on increased buying by jewellers and retailers to meet the upcoming festive season demand. 

In line with an overall trend, silver also recovered by Rs 200 to Rs 45,400 per kg on increased offtake by coin makers. 

In Delhi, gold of 99.9 and 99.5 per cent purity recovered by Rs 160 each to Rs 28,360 and Rs 28,160 per 10 grams, respectively. It had tumbled by Rs 275 yesterday. 

Sovereign followed suit and rose by Rs 100 to Rs 24,900 per piece of eight grams. 

In line with a general firm trend, silver ready moved up by Rs 200 to Rs 45,400 per kg and weekly-based delivery by Rs 185 to Rs 45,095 per kg. The white metal had lost Rs 200 in the previous session. 

Silver coins spurted by Rs 1,000 to Rs 80,000 for buying and Rs 81,000 for selling of 100 pieces.