Food Minister seeks import duty hike on crude and refined edible oils

With the intent of restricting oil imports and protecting domestic farmers, the government is mulling over an issue of raising import duty on crude and refined edible oils, among other matters. In the wake of local prices of oil falling to historic lows due to cheaper imports from Malaysia and Indonesia, Industry body Solvent Extractors Association (SEA) has been demanding a duty hike in crude edible oils to 10% and on refined edible oils to 25%. Further, in the meeting held between the Food Minister Ram Vilas Paswan and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Friday, besides the import duty issue, problems faced by sugar mills in availing loans sanctioned through the Sugar Development Fund (SDF) along with the issue of additional budget allocation for FCI were discussed. Paswan, primarily, briefed Finance Minister about the current impasse between the UP sugar mills and the state government over cane price policy. The food minister was in the favour of relaxing certain norms so that sugar mills could avail loans easily from SDF, while seeking additional budget allocation for state-run Food Corporation of India (FCI) for giving food subsidies this fiscal. A budget allocation of Rs 92,000 crore has been made against the requirement of Rs 1,47,700 crore for this fiscal.

Sensex, Nifty consolidate; auto, FMCG stocks under pressure

Equity benchmarks remained positive amid consolidation. The Sensex climbed 52.62 points to 26903.67 and the Nifty rose 16.40 points to 8030.95. About 982 shares have advanced, 921 shares declined, and 77 shares are unchanged on the Bombay Stock Exchange. Banking and financial stocks supported the market. Top lender State Bank of India and rival HDFC Bank rallied around a percent each while ICICI Bank was up 0.5 percent. Housing finance company HDFC gained 1.8 percent. Dr Reddy's Labs, BHEL and Gail India topped the buying list, up 2-3 percent. Hindalco Industries gained more than a percent. However, commercial vehicle maker Tata Motors and utility vehicle maker Mahindra & Mahindra fell more than 1.5 percent on profit taking. Two-wheeler manufacturers Hero Motocorp and Bajaj Auto declined 0.8 percent each while car maker Maruti Suzuki lost 0.4 percent.   Shares of ITC, Sun Pharma, ONGC, Wipro, HUL and NTPC declined 0.5-0.8 percent.

Nifty breaches 8050, Sensex firm; HUL up, Wipro falls 2%

The market continues its uptrend in first session after the auspicious Mahurat trading. The Sensex is up 106.15 points at 26957.20 and the Nifty is up 49.80 points at 8064.35. About 498 shares have advanced, 116 shares declined, and 27 shares are unchanged. Dr Reddy's Labs, TCS, BHEL and HUL are top gainers in the Sensex. Among the losers are Wipro, GAIL, Cipla and Sun Pharma. The Indian rupee opened higher by 11 paise at 61.17 per dollar versus 61.28 Wednesday. The euro held firm in early trade after the European Central Bank's stress tests found smaller capital shortfalls among European Banks than expected. Traders will be looking to Germany's IFO business sentiment index due later today. Pramit Brahmbhatt of Veracity said, "After a long weekend, equity markets are likely to trade sideways and will take cues from global markets for further directions. Rupee is expected to trade firm, although strength in dollar could cap upside moves in rupee altogether. Range for the USD-INR seen between Rs 60.80-61.80/dollar." US stocks climbed on Friday, with Wall Street derailing a four-week slide with its best week this year, as quarterly results from companies including Microsoft and Procter & Gamble inspired investor enthusiasm. In addition, the Federal Reserve will begin its 2-day policy meeting on Tuesday. The fed is expected to end its 3rd round of bond buying with investors eyeing clues on rate hike timings. In Europe, concerns about the results of Europe's bank stress tests and the first Ebola case in New York, weighed on investor sentiment ending the FTSE Friday's session down around half a percent. Moreover, other core indices, CAC and DAX were down around seven tenths of a percent. Brent crude slipped below USD 86 a barrel amid abundant supply and weak demand. And in metals space, gold edged lower as rallying equity markets and strong us economic data dented demand for the precious metal as an insurance against risk.