HUL drops ex-dividend

Hindustan Unilever lost 0.97% to Rs 599 at 10:33 IST on BSE as the stock turned ex-dividend today, 10 July 2013, for final dividend of Rs 6 per share for the year ended 31 March 2013.

On BSE, 32,000 shares were traded in the counter as against average daily volume of 2.99 lakh shares in the past one quarter.

The stock hit a high of Rs 601.80 and a low of Rs 598.55 so far during the day. The stock had hit a record high of Rs 631.95 on 5 July 2013. The stock had hit a 52-week low of Rs 432.25 on 7 March 2013.

The stock had outperformed the market over the past one month till 9 July 2013, rising 2.32% compared with the Sensex's 0.05% rise. The scrip had also outperformed the market in past one quarter, surging 28.3% as against Sensex's 6.66% rise.
India's largest FMCG company by sales has equity capital of Rs 216.25 crore. Face value per share is Re 1.

Before turning ex-dividend, the stock offered a dividend yield of 0.99% based on the closing price of Rs 604.85 on Tuesday, 9 July 2013.
Hindustan Unilever's (HUL) net profit rose 14.7% to Rs 787.20 crore on 12.5% growth in net sales to Rs 6367.14 crore in Q4 March 2013 over Q4 March 2012.

About Hindustan Unilever:-
HUL is India's largest FMCG company in terms of sales with over 35 brands spanning 20 distinct categories such as soaps, detergents, shampoos, skin care, toothpastes, deodorants, cosmetics, tea, coffee, packaged foods, ice cream, and water purifiers. HUL is a subsidiary of Unilever Plc, one of the world's leading suppliers of fast moving consumer goods with strong local roots in more than 100 countries across the globe.

Brent crude rises to $108 per barrel

Oil prices edged higher in Asian trade today buoyed by solid gains in US stocks and stronger demand in the world’s biggest economy, analysts said.

Concerns about a disruption in West Asian supply caused by the turmoil in Egypt have eased after a timetable for fresh polls was announced yesterday following last week’s military coup.

New York’s main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in August, gained 99 cents to $104.52 a barrel in the morning trade and Brent North Sea crude for August delivery added two cents to $107.83.

“Traders have shifted their focus from the Egypt violence to the positive sentiment in the US equity markets,” Kelly Teoh, market strategist at IG Markets in Singapore, said in a note.

US stocks had yesterday closed solidly higher for the fourth straight day on optimism about corporate earnings. Most Asian stock markets were also up today, cheered by the rally on Wall Street.

The market gains came despite the latest economic forecast from the IMF, which trimmed the world economic growth expectations for 2013 to 3.1 per cent from the April forecast of 3.3 per cent.

Oil prices were also supported by data from industry group American Petroleum Institute (API) showing crude inventories in the United States dropped by nine million barrels last week, indicating a pick-up in energy demand in the world’s biggest economy.

Lee Chen Hoay, investment analyst at Phillip Futures in Singapore, said the API data surpassed market expectations for a drawdown of 3.3 million barrels.

The US Energy Information Administration will release the official crude inventory data for the week to July 5 later today.

RIL stops KG-D6 gas supply to GAIL’s LPG plants: reports

Reliance Industries has stopsped KG-D6 gas supply to GAIL’s LPG plants, according to reports.
Reports said that GAIL was allocated 2.59 million standard cubic metres per day of gas from KG-D6 fields for production of LPG.
“KG-D6 gas supplies to our LPG plants has completely stopped. We are getting no gas, reports GAIL.
The Bay of Bengal KG-D6 fields, which began gas production in April 2009, had hit a peak of 69.43 mmscmd in March 2010.
Earlier reports said that the government had given fertiliser top priority in allocation and supply of KG-D6 gas.
D1&D3 output has since fallen to about 10 mmscmd

Banks to open Aadhaar-linked accounts: RBI

The RBI has advised banks to take steps to complete account opening and seeding Aadhaar number in all the DBT districts

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has advised banks to complete account opening process in all the districts which direct benefit transfer (DBT) and nominate a Complaint Redressal Officer in each district to address depositors grievance. 

While reviewing the progress of seeding of Aadhaar number in bank accounts, it was emphasized that banks should proactively take steps to open a large number of bank accounts, seed these accounts with Aadhaar numbers and view it as a sustainable & scaleable business opportunity, the RBI said in a notification on Tuesday.

The RBI has advised banks to take steps to complete account opening and seeding Aadhaar number in all the DBT districts.

It has also advised banks to closely monitor the progress in seeding of Aadhaar number in bank accounts of beneficiaries. Banks should put in place a system to provide acknowledgement to the beneficiary of seeding request and also send confirmation of seeding of Aadhaar number, RBI further said.

Banks should also set up a Complaint Grievance Redressal mechanism in each bank and nominate a Complaint Redressal Officer in each district, to redress the grievances related to ‘seeding of Aadhaar number in bank accounts'.

Top economy news of the day

The Union Budget had targeted direct tax collection to grow 18% in 2013- 14.
The Reserve Bank of India is set to ask state-run oil companies to centralise their dollar purchases in a single public sector bank. (BS)

To boost economic growth and provide many more jobs through manufacturing, a Prime Minister- headed committee set a target of raising annual steel production capacity to 300mn tons by 2025 and to increase textile exports by 30% this year. (BS)

Hit hard by slowing economic growth, the governments direct tax collections, net of refunds, rose just 6.4% to Rs897bn in the first quarter of the current financial year, compared to 843bn in April-June of 2012-13. The Union Budget had targeted direct tax collection to grow 18% in 2013- 14. (BS)

Cairn India slips ex-dividend

Cairn India fell 1.46% to Rs 290.90 at 9:33 IST on BSE after the stock turned ex-dividend today, 10 July 2013, for final dividend of Rs 6.50 per share for the year ended 31 March 2013.

Meanwhile, the S&P BSE Sensex was up 20.96 points, or 0.11%, to 19,460.44.

On BSE, 18,000 shares were traded in the counter as against an average daily volume of 1.73 lakh shares in the past one quarter.

The stock hit a high of Rs 291.90 and a low of Rs 287.30 so far during the day. The stock had hit a 52-week high of Rs 365.90 on 17 September 2012. The stock had hit a 52-week low of Rs 267.90 on 28 March 2013.

The stock had outperformed the market over the past one month till 9 July 2013, rising 2.54% compared with the Sensex's 0.05% rise. The scrip had, however, underperformed the market in past one quarter, rising 1.57% as against Sensex's 6.66% rise.
The large-cap company has an equity capital of Rs 1910.30 crore. Face value per share is Rs 10.

Before turning ex-dividend, the stock offered a dividend yield of 2.20% based on the closing price of Rs 295.20 on Tuesday, 9 July 2013.

Cairn India's consolidated net profit rose 17.3% to Rs 2563.60 crore on 19.5% growth in net sales to Rs 4363.36 crore in Q4 March 2013 over Q4 March 2012.
Cairn India is primarily engaged in the business of oil and gas exploration, production and transportation. The company sells its oil to major refineries in India and its gas to both public sector units and private buyers.

RIL arm appraches SAT for insider trading

Reports said that RIL arm Reliance Petroinvestments approached Securities Appellate Tribunal against SEBI which imposed a Rs 11-crore penalty on the company in the Indian Petrochemicals Corp Ltd (IPCL) insider trading case.
Earlier in May, SEBI accused Reliance Petroinvestments of buying shares of IPCL in early 2007.

Reliance Petroinvestments received 426,000 shares of RIL against 2.13 mn shares of IPCL acquired, report was quoted as saying.

"It's observed from investigation report that Reliance Petroinvestments received dividend of approximately Rs 1.3 crore and made a notional profit of approximately Rs 2.55 crore, "Sebi's adjudicating officer, D Ravi Kumar reported in an order.

KPIT Cummins, Ramco Systems and Tata Communications may witness some action today

KPIT Cummins, global product engineering and IT consulting partner to automotive, manufacturing and energy & utilities corporations has announced the release of its new generation diagnostics products - “In2Soft Diagnostic Tools”. The enhanced version comes with features that ensure smoother and more seamless diagnostics for the OEMs. The enhanced tools are a part of KPIT’s complete diagnostic portfolio. Besides the tools, KPIT also offers customer-specific solutions and reliable services to its customers around the world in the diagnostics space.

Ramco Systems has clarified on market rumours regarding alleged takeover of the company. That all the rumors are baseless and the company is in process of coming out with a right issue to meet its capital requirement and has taken steps towards the same.

Jindal Steel and Power (JSPL) is reportedly in talks with UK-based steel trader Stemcor to buy its Odisha-based unit, Brahmani River Pellets (BRPL). BRPL has a 4-million tonne per annum beneficiation plant at Barbil, which supplies a pellet plant at Jajpur in Odisha through a 220-km underground slurry pipeline.

Tata Communications has launched Jamvee, a multi-device compatible cloud-based video conferencing service that allows anyone to take part in a video meeting from any location via a desktop computer, tablet, smartphone or a dedicated Telepresence room. Up to 46 participants can join each conference at the touch of a button across the world with largest and furthest-reaching undersea cable network. This robust connectivity backbone from Tata Communications ensures consistent global access and reliability needed by enterprises and professionals for crisp, secure and hassle-free video collaboration - whether at the office, at home, or on the move.

Axis Bank, India’s third largest private sector bank tied up with information services firm Experian to enhance its debt management and collections activities. Axis Bank will use Experian's Tallyman software to efficiently manage customers in arrears, reduce the cost of collecting debt and increase working capital by reducing debt write-offs. Tallyman is a key component of Experian's Debt Collection and Recovery suite and the software automates the collections process across the complete lifecycle - from managing high-risk pre-delinquent customers through to debt recovery.

Speciality Restaurants has resumed the Commercial Operations of ‘Mainland China’ located at Siam Tower, Road No.15, Sector 3, Uttara Model Town, Dhaka, Bangladesh and Oh! Calcutta located Karishma Services, House No.49, 6th Floor, Block-H, Road No.11, Dhaka-1213. Bangladesh. The total number of restaurants and confectionaries of the Company are 86 and 14 respectively.

Welspun group's energy business is extending its clean energy focus beyond power generation. It has plans to set up solar parks across four states. The company has already started work on a 100 megawatt solar park in Rajasthan, for which it is currently acquiring land. It would need around 500 acres for the park for which they are looking for land in Rajasthan. The average investment in a park would be around Rs 100 crore for land development and evacuation infrastructure like setting up sub-stations. It is also looking around for investors into the parks.

The US state of Idaho has said that it has received almost $420,000 from drug major Ranbaxy as part of a $500-million settlement that the Indian firm had signed with US authorities. The settlement resolves civil and criminal allegations that Ranbaxy introduced adulterated drugs into interstate commerce, and, as a result, false or fraudulent claims were submitted to Idaho Medicaid.

Wall Street ends higher

The Dow Jones industrial average, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq gained between 0.5% and 0.7%.
The US and China start two days of strategic and economic talks in Washington. US Treasury Secretary Jack Lew has high hopes that the new Chinese government will undertake some of the economic reforms the United States has been pushing for years, says a report.

The Dow Jones industrial average, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq gained between 0.5% and 0.7%. All three indexes have closed higher for four straight days in a row.

The Bank of Japan begins a two-day policy meeting.

Flat start for the day

The markets have been waiting for a while to get a clear picture from the Fed even as the IMF has cut global growth forecasts yet again. IMF cut India’s growth rate forecast by 0.2% to 5.6% in FY2014 as it did to global growth forecast from 3.3% to 3.1%. This move was largely expected and may be overlooked by investors.

What investors will look out fir is the FOMC minutes which will be released today. This will be followed by Ben Bernanke’s speech in Cambridge.

The outlook is a positive start. The Indian market may remain in a range ahead of the developments in anticipation of some comforting notes from Bernanke.

The rupee recovered to 60.14 on Tuesday. The dollar could ease its assault on the Indian Rupee. The Reserve Bank of India banned banks from proprietary trading in domestic currency futures and options, while SEBI doubled the margin requirement on domestic dollar-rupee forward trade. That’s not all. Oil and gas companies have now been directed to buy dollars from a single bank to check the demand and supply of dollars. This will lead to a slowdown in speculation on the currency.

Indian Oil in particular could benefit as aftermarket reports on Tuesday suggested Malaysian Petronas is selling 10% of its stake in the Canadian shale reserve assets to Indian Oil Corporation.

C Mahendra Exports will today consider listing on the MCX Stock Exchange.
Compact Disc India will mull 50% stock purchase offer by an UAE company.
Techno Forge is considering issue of shares on a preferential basis.

Shriram Transport Finance Co will announce its NCD issue later in the day.

Communications and IT Minister Sibal and Telecom Secretary Farooqui  will today speak at conference on Competitiveness in Corporate India.

India’s foreign minister has left for overseas to drum up investments to improve the investor climate in the country. The government has gone full throttle on the reform front and is looking to open up sensitive sectors like defence, Retail after liberalising foreign investment in the telecom sector.

Narayana Murthy had promised decisive and painful action when he was called back from retirement to turn around the fortunes of Infosys. Change has begun in India's second-largest IT services provider. Basab Pradhan, senior vice president and head of global sales at Infosys, quit abruptly saying he is going to explore options in the start-up world. The stock has been moving up in recent days and investors will be cautious ahead of the numbers later this week.

The government’s direct tax collections, net of refunds, rose just 6.4% to Rs897bn in the first quarter of the current financial year, compared to 843bn in April-June of 2012-13. The Union Budget had targeted direct tax collection to grow 18% in 2013- 14.

The US and China start two days of strategic and economic talks in Washington. US Treasury Secretary Jack Lew has high hopes that the new Chinese government will undertake some of the economic reforms the United States has been pushing for years, says a report.

The Dow Jones industrial average, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq gained between 0.5% and 0.7%. All three indexes have closed higher for four straight days in a row.

The Bank of Japan begins a two-day policy meeting.

Oil prices eased on profit-taking today following last week's surge.

China's trade performance for June showed drops in both exports and imports, China's exports last month fell 3.1% from a year earlier, Imports dropped 0.7% after slipping 0.3% in May.

In June alone, the emerging market exchange-traded funds have seen net outflows to the tune of $6 billion, according to data from Morningstar.