Sensex, Nifty celebrate Diwali; Hero, Tata Motors gainers

Equity benchmarks continued to see buying interest led by capital goods, auto, healthcare and technology stocks. The 30-share BSE Sensex climbed 184.49 points to 26760.14 and the 50-share NSE Nifty jumped 55.75 points to 7983.50. The broader markets gained too with the BSE Midcap and Smallcap indices rising 1 percent and 0.8 percent, respectively. About 1343 shares have advanced, 545 shares declined, and 62 shares are unchanged on the Bombay Stock Exchange.   Hero Motocorp topped the buying list, up over 3 percent as the two-wheeler maker expects to clock close to 1.5 lakh in retail sales on October 21. "Dhanteras sales of 1.5 lakh will be 40-50 percent growth (YoY)," it said. Tata Motors, Cipla, BHEL, Dr Reddy's Labs and Jindal Steel gained 2 percent each. Kotak Mahindra Bank rose over 2 percent ahead of second quarter earnings today. The CNBC-TV18 poll expects standalone profit after tax to grow 15.2 percent and net interest income to rise 12 percent year-on-year. However, ONGC, Tata Power, Coal India, PNB, NMDC and DLF were only losers. Risa International, KPIT Technologies, Dewan Housing, Den Networks and Tube Investment rallied 5-17 percent while BASF India, Jagran Prakashan, TVS Motor, Biocon and Sobha Developer were down 2-4 percent. 

RIL, Lupin and NMDC to see some action today

Reliance Industries’ (RIL) telecom arm - Reliance Jio Infocomm is merging its two subsidiaries, Infotel Telecom and Rancore Technologies, with itself. The move is aimed at bringing all its telecom related operations under a single entity before launching services. While Reliance Jio has a unified licence, Infotel Telecom has long-distance telephony licences. Rancore is an R&D unit. The merger will enable Reliance Jio to conduct national and international long-distance business under a single licence. The company, which holds 1800 MHz spectrum across 14 circles and 2300 MHz in 22 circles, is gearing up to launch fourth-generation wireless services in 2015. Looking to bolster its overseas presence, drug major Lupin is scouting for acquisition opportunities in the US market, especially in inhalers and injectables segments. The company continues to be on the lookout for meaningful targets, be it brands or technology companies, in inhalation, complex injectables and skin diseases segments. Terming the US as a high growth market for the company, the Mumbai-based firm aims to grow at around 25% in the world’s largest drug market. The company remains the 5th largest and fastest growing top five generic players in the US for the third year now. The Joint Venture company between the National Mineral Development Corporation (NMDC) and state-owned Chhattisgarh Mineral Development Corporation (CMDC) would explore 1 million tonne iron ore every year from the new deposit of the Bailadila mines in Dantewada district. Both the mining companies had formed a Joint Venture (JV) in 2008 to develop and explore the deposit 13 in the Bailadila mines where the NMDC has two deposits namely Kirandul and Bacheli. The third mine in Bailadila that had been endowed with rich and world-class iron ore deposit would be developed after nearly 54 years. The Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT) will hear realty giant DLF’s appeal against the SEBI order that barred the company and six top executives from accessing capital market for three years.  In a major blow to DLF, the order had been passed by Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) for active and deliberate suppression of material information at the time of its IPO over seven years ago. DLF’s initial public offer in 2007 had fetched Rs 9,187 crore -- the biggest IPO in the country at that time. SpiceJet has introduced its ‘Diwali Dhamaka’ sale, with one way fares starting as low as Rs 899 (all-inclusive). The fares for the Bangalore-Chennai-Kochi circuit start at Rs 899 while for Bangalore-Goa it is Rs 1,599 and rest of India it is Rs 2,499. The tickets for the offer can be booked between October 21 and October 26 for travel between November 1, 2014 to December 15, 2014. The sale applies to all direct flights on SpiceJet’s domestic network. The fares charged under this offer are non-refundable (taxes and fees are refundable). Changes are permitted for a fee of Rs 2,000 plus applicable fare difference. Tata Motors’ British-based arm Jaguar and Land Rover (JLR) sees sales growth in China roughly halving this year and decelerating even further next year due to a larger base of comparison and slower expansion of the world’s largest auto market. JLR opened its first overseas factory in China. By manufacturing locally, the automaker can avoid heavy import duties and price its vehicles more competitively in a fast-growing luxury car market dominated by German brands Audi, BMW and Daimler’s Mercedes-Benz. The cash-strapped National Spot Exchange (NSEL) is set to be merged with its parent, Jignesh Shah-promoted Financial Technologies (India) or FTIL, with the government issuing a draft order to this effect. The order comes about a year after a Rs 5,600-crore payment crisis broke out at NSEL, leaving 13,000 investors in the lurch. The move will help resolve the payment crisis but FTIL will be hit with NSEL’s liabilities. After the order comes into effect, NSEL will be dissolved. This is likely only after two months, as the ministry has given this time to FTIL and NSEL to give suggestions and objections. The worsening asset quality, high levels of restructured loans and elevated provisioning costs - aspects that have troubled Punjab National Bank(PNB) in the last one year - continue to remain concerns. In the recent September quarter, the gross NPAs remained elevated at 5.65 percent of loans, up from 5.4 percent in the June 2014 quarter. The bank’s pile of restructured loans, at 10 percent of total loans is one of the highest among the public sector banks. Provisions for bad loans shot up 63 percent over last year. While PNB’s net profit grew 13.8 percent in the September quarter, it was mainly led by a 73 percent rise in other income. Hindustan Motors has agreed to settle claims of the West Bengal Government worth Rs 194.47 crore for additional profit on the sale of 314 acres of surplus land in its plant in the State in 2006-07. It would transfer to the Government of West Bengal rights to the non-compete fee that it was to receive from Bengal Shriram Hitech City (BSL) as a part of the land sale consideration. The West Bengal Government and Hind Motors have been at loggerheads over the claim for the last couple of years. Hind Motors had sold the land for a total of Rs 295 crore. The company had projected to make a profit of Rs 18 crore and a turnover of Rs 644 crore in the sixth year from 2006.