Sensex trades lower; SBI, HDFC Bank, L&T slip

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Indian equity benchmark indices were trading volatile with negative bias. Selling pressure was seen in capital goods, realty and banking stocks while FMCG and pharma stocks witness some buying interest. Analyst believes that despite all the negatives like interest rate, inflation, margin pressure etc, the market doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to go below 5,700
Reliance, ICICI Bank, ITC, Tata Steel and BHEL were the positive contributors to the Sensex. However, Infosys, HDFC, L&T, HDFC Bank and SBI were negative contributors.
Selling pressure was seen across the globe. Most Asian indices were down. Excluding FTSE European markets were also trading lower in early trades.
At 12.58 hrs IST, the Sensex was down 42.62 points or 0.22% at 19249.40, and the Nifty was down 16.30 points or 0.28% at 5769.15.
About 1175 shares have advanced, 1526 shares declined, and 932 shares remain unchanged.
Top losers on the Sensex were Jindal Steel at Rs 661.35 down 2.36%, L&T at Rs 1,628.85 down 2%, HDFC Bank at Rs 2,298.75 down 1.71%, M&M at Rs 756.70 down 1.43% and HDFC at Rs 707.10 down 1.12%.
Cigarette major ITC was trading at Rs 193.35 up 0.94% from its previous close of Rs 191.55.
According to Krishna Kumar Karwa, MD, Emkay Global Financial Services, despite all the negatives like interest rate, inflation, margin pressure etc, the market doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to go below 5,700. That, according to him, is an indicator that inherently there is buoyancy in the system.
However, Top gainers on the Sensex were HUL at Rs 286.50 up 2.71%, Maruti Suzuki at Rs 1,323.25 up 1.54%, BHEL at Rs 2,016.40 up 1.20%, Reliance Comm at Rs 100.80 up 0.95% and ITC at Rs 193.35 up 0.94%.
Index heavyweight Hindustan Lever was trading at Rs 286.50 up 2.71% from its previous close of Rs 278.95.
Top losers on the BSE Midcap were Shree Global, IRB Infra, STC India, HDIL and Sterlite Techno down 3-5%.
Top losers on the BSE Smallcap were Elgi Equipments, Kesoram, Kirloskar Bros, Petron Eng Cons and Honda Siel down 5-11%.

Rasna launches Fruitplus drink

New Delhi : Rasna has now come up with a novel stick pack of its existing product ‘Fruitplus’. Saina Nehwal, India's number one shuttler unveiled the new packaging in the capital today.

Saina shared her childhood moments of being in love with Rasna, a feeling she commented she still has. Unveiling the novel stick pack, India’s number one shuttler shared her belief in this new packaging brought in for the benefit of the consumers. Also accompanying Saina was Rasna’s Chairman and Managing Director Mr Piruz Khambatta.

 “Rasna is proud to be consistently present in the market and we have been committed to our consumers with the quality and nutritious value of our products. Benefit of these consumers only has yet again formed the basis of our growth. Rasna Fruitplus Singles intends to offer a convenient and hassle free experience. Children and adults can carry the sticks to their schools, playgrounds and workplaces respectively,” Rasna’s Chairman and Managing Director  Piruz Khambatta said.

Rasna Fruitplus Singles has also combined ‘choice’ with ‘convenience’. This product would be available in a mono-carton comprising of variedly flavoured stick packs – orange, lemon, mango, pineapple and mixed fruit. Unlike some other concentrates which take time to dissolve in water, Fruitplus Singles gets dissolved within 5 seconds and offers greater nutritional value of fruits.

Mr Khambatta further added, “As a market leader with 90% market share since many decades, Rasna is responsible to provide its customers what they want. Rasna Fruitplus in stick form priced at Rs.5/- is an example of how an Indian company can meet the ever growing aspirations of its customers by launching novel innovative healthy products in convenient formats.”

Rasna is marketing ‘Fruitplus Singles’ nationally and has also come up with a new television ad campaign for the same

Mother Dairy introduces ‘Paan’ and ‘Rose’ Kulfis

New Delhi: In its bid to further strengthen its offering in the category of Kulfi, Mother Dairy today announced the launch of two new flavors – 'Rose Kulfi' and 'Paan Kulfi'. The two new flavors will add variety to the already existing offering.

Speaking on the launch, Mother Dairy Spokesperson said, "Post the success of the Kesar and Pista Kulfi we are adding more flavors in our range of Kulfi offerings. Keeping in mind that Kulfi even today is the most preferred Indian dessert we are sure that our two new Paan and Rose Kulfi will be successful in tickling the taste buds of the consumers."

Paan – Meetha Paan is a favorite after meal flavor enjoyed today. Keeping the consumer preferences in mind, Mother Dairy launches the traditional Paan flavor in a Kulfi.

Rose – Rose is one of the most exotic flavors used in cooking for sensory pleasure. The same flavor, aroma has been converted into Kulfi by Mother Dairy with a special tint of rose in it.

"Paan Kulfi" and "Rose Kulfi" priced at Rs. 15/- for a 60ml kulfi stick bar will be available across retail outlets, Mother Dairy Booths, carts in Delhi/NCR, UP, Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Mumbai, Pune & Kolkata.

Sensex drops 0.8% in volatile session; RIL drags, ICICI gains

Unitech Ltd.

BSE

37.40

-07.54%

-03.05

Vol:8998255 shares traded

NSE

37.25

-07.91%

-03.20

Vol:62949980 shares traded

Prices|Financials|Company Info|Reports

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MUMBAI: Indian markets dropped for the fourth day, shedding 0.8 percent in a choppy session on Thursday as monthly derivatives contracts expired, and as high inflation strengthened expectations of a tight monetary stance by the central bank.

Reliance Industries extended losses a day after an oil ministry source said the energy giant could face a penalty for falling short of targeted gas production at its D6 block off the east coast.

The stock, which weighs the most on key indexes, slipped 1.4 percent, taking losses for the year to date to 8.2 percent.

The 30-share BSE index fell 0.81 percent, or 156.67 points, to 19,292.02 points, with 25 components closing in the red. It had started higher.

"I would not read too much into today's fall. It is the typical situation on an expiry day," said Gajendra Nagpal, CEO of Unicon Financial.

"It is all wait and watch before the (Reserve Bank of India's) policy next week. I don't think RBI will hike rates by more than 25 basis points as they would not want to stifle growth," he said.

The RBI is seen raising rates by a quarter percentage point at the policy on Tuesday and analysts now expect it to raise rates by a total of 75 basis points for the rest of 2011, the latest Reuters poll found on Tuesday.

Foreign funds have poured in $3.3 billion into Indian equities since the start of March, driving the main index 8.2 percent higher, but they were net sellers for the first two sessions of this week and offloaded $319 million of stocks.

Dealers shrugged off the selling, saying an easy U.S. monetary policy will continue to drive money to riskier assets.

"...there is some respite after the Fed meeting, as we now know that the tap (of money) is on," said Shankar Char, vice-president and head of sales trading at ICICI Securities, referring to the U.S. Federal Reserve's decision to hold short-term interest rates near zero.

Char expected market to continue to be choppy until the central bank's policy.

The 50-share NSE index declined 0.8 percent to 5,785.45. Losers more than doubled the gainers in the broader market, on a volume of 823 million shares on the NSE, higher than the 90-day average daily volume of 646 million shares.

Top lender State Bank of India and private lender HDFC Bank dropped 1.9 percent and 0.7 percent, respectively.

ICICI Bank bucked the trend and rose nearly 1 percent after the top private-sector lender posted a 44-percent jump in quarterly net profit on strong demand for loans and a rise in fee income in India's fast growing economy.

Unitech and DB Realty slumped 7.9 percent and 4.3 percent, respectively, on investor worries about the ongoing telecoms licencing graft case.

On Wednesday, India's Directorate of Enforcement filed a status report in the Supreme Court stating that properties worth 20 billion rupees of two of the three companies charged in the case "will be attached within two months".

The report did not name the companies, but an official with the agency confirmed to Reuters that the companies were Swan Telecom, which is now called Etisalat DB, and Unitech Wireless, which have been charged in the case along with a unit of Reliance Communications.

Realty stocks will rebound in two years: Macquarie

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MUMBAI: India's real estate stocks have attractive valuations after plunging 83% from their peak and are likely to rebound within two years, according to Macquarie Group.

India's real estate industry is grappling with rising borrowing costs, shrinking access to credit and a decline in demand as record prices make homes unaffordable. The Bombay Stock Exchange's 14-stock Realty Index has dropped from its peak in January 2008, while the benchmark Sensitive Index surged to a record last November.

"This is one of the most bombed out, neglected and despised spaces in Asia," Mark Matthews, a Singapore-based strategist at Macquarie Group , Australia's biggest investment bank, said in a phone interview. "It's in a distressed environment like this that one can find value."

India's property index is trading at 1.4 times book value, less than half of the benchmark measure's 3.4 multiple, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The country's developers are expected to face "large-scale distress" amid rising borrowing costs and shrinking access to credit that may force them into fire sales of assets, Knight Frank said.

Indian developers will have to repay Rs 1.8 trillion ($40.4 billion) of debt to state-run banks, private-equity funds and other lenders over the next two to three years, Amit Goenka, national director of capital transactions at the Indian unit of Londonbased Knight Frank, said on April 21.

Shares of developers that survive will surge several fold over the next few years from where they are, Matthews said. He's focusing on companies with low debt, high free cash flow, and a good product, he said. The Realty Index is up 20% from this year's low on February 24. It fell 0.3% on Tuesday.

Prestige Estates Projects is the brokerage's top pick in the industry. The Bangalore-based developer, which is in a retail property venture with Singapore's CapitaMalls Asia, has a low debt-to-equity ratio of 0.3, Matthews said.

India's property industry is going through a similar phase as Thailand almost two decades ago, when the industry was hit by oversupply Matthews said.

BSE Sensex falls for 3rd day; Wipro, Reliance Inds slump

A man walks past the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) building in Mumbai September 21, 2010.

Credit: Reuters/Danish Siddiqui/Files

MUMBAI | Wed Apr 27, 2011 5:22pm IST

MUMBAI (Reuters) - The BSE Sensex dropped for a third straight session and closed 0.5 percent lower on Wednesday, amid steady world stocks, with dropping nearly 3 percent as the third-largest software firm's tepid growth forecast let down investors.Traders expect choppy trade in a narrow range before the expiry of monthly derivatives contracts on the National Stock Exchange on Thursday and the central bank's annual policy meet on May 3.
Reliance Industries, which has the highest weighting on both the key indexes, dropped 1.5 percent following Goldman Sachs' downgrade of the stock to neutral from buy, and as an oil ministry source said it could be penalised for falling short of targeted gas production at its D6 block.
Oil and Natural Gas Corp was among the big gainers, firming 2.3 percent after the U.S. bank upgraded the stock to buy from neutral based on stable-to-improving oil realisations, volume growth and attractive valuations.
The 30-share BSE index declined 0.49 percent, or 96.66 points to 19,448.69, with 23 of its components losing ground.
"The volatile trade will continue as investors are not comfortable on making big commitments before the events lined up," said Rakesh Rawal, head of private wealth management at Anand Rathi, referring to the Federal Reserve's meeting on Wednesday, the contracts expiry and the central bank review.
The U.S. Fed is expected to keep rates near zero and signal that it is in no hurry to scale back its massive support for the economy.
The 50-share NSE index dropped 0.6 percent to 5,833.90 points.
In the broader market, declining shares outpaced advancing ones in the ratio of 1.4:1 on volume of 614 million shares on the NSE, less than its 90-day average daily volume of 647 million shares.
The BSE main index is still up 9.1 percent since the start of March, backed by foreign fund inflows of $3.4 billion into Indian equities. It is down 5.2 percent so far in 2011.
Wipro shares closed 2.9 percent lower at 451.10 rupees, after the outsourcer, which gets most of its revenue from exports, warned wage increases would hit operating margins this year. The Bangalore-based firm met forecasts with a 14 percent rise in fourth-quarter net profit.
"The guidance makes one uneasy and it looks like the company will not meet overall analysts' expectations for FY12," said Ambareesh Baliga, chief operating officer at Way2Wealth Securities.
"We could see further downgrades for the sectoral stocks in days to come."
The IT sector index closed 0.2 percent lower.
Financials reeled under pressure with the banking sector index declining 0.7 percent ahead of the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI's) policy statement on Tuesday.
The RBI is seen raising rates by a quarter percentage point at the policy and analysts now expect it to raise rates by a total of 75 basis points for the rest of 2011, or 25 basis points more than they expected in mid-March, the latest Reuters poll found on Tuesday.
Leading lenders State Bank of India and ICICI Bank fell 0.8 percent and 1.1 percent respectively.
The MSCI All-Country World Index and its emerging market sub-index were up 0.2 percent each by 1024 GMT.

STOCK THAT MOVED
* Ambuja Cements declined 4.3 percent to 150.95 rupees, after the cement maker said late Tuesday its March quarter net profit fell 12 percent.
* Air express courier firm Blue Dart jumped 7.7 percent to 1,488.15 rupees, after its January-March profit rose 52 percent from a year ago.
* Indoco Remedies rose nearly 3 percent to 455 rupees, after the drugmaker said its quarterly net profit rose 48 percent.
* Clariant Chemicals firmed 2.8 percent to 728 rupees, after the specialty chemicals maker said its March quarter net profit soared to 2.2 billion rupees from 325.3 million rupees a year ago.

MAIN TOP THREE BY VOLUME ON NSE
* GVK Power on 28.6 million shares
* Unitech on 15.1 million shares
* Suzlon Energy on 11.9 million shares

(Reporting by Ami Shah; editing by Malini Menon)

Find out: What's leading to weakness across Asian markets?

Excerpts from Business Lunch on CNBC-TV18 Watch the full show »

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Asian stocks declined for a second day as companies reported earnings that missed estimates and after commodity prices dropped.
In an interview with CNBC-TV18, Tim Condon, Head of Research, Asia, ING Financial Markets, speaks about what’s leading to this bout of weakness across the Asia.
Below is a verbatim transcript of his interview with CNBC-TV18's Mitali Mukherjee. Also watch the accompanying video.
Q: What’s leading to this bout of weakness across the Asia? Is it to do with the commodities or are earnings performances falling through?
A: A combination of things, the anxiety about what Bernanke says at his press conference tomorrow, the weakness in the commodity complex. All these have undermined a little bit of confidence in the global growth outlook and led to some profit taking.
Q: How is liquidity positioned currently ahead of that comment from Ben Bernanke and indeed given the underperformance these markets have started displaying over the past few sessions?
A: The people are a little bit anxious and would like to take some money off the table ahead of this. The fear maybe that Mr Bernanke will sound a little bit more dovish and highlight the risk to the growth outlook more than people would like. We could see a bit more weakness in these risk assets.
Q: If there is a firm indication though from him on the fact that QE2 will be stopped and there will be no QE3, would you expect to see a much sharper reaction on markets on the downside?
A: That’s hard to say because the US economy is limping along. The evidence is that the US economy is limping along. It would be in this circumstance very unusual for Mr Bernanke to display such bullishness about the end of QE2 and unambiguously state that there would be no QE3. It’s definitely not a politically popular policy. But the fact is that the US economy is very weak and conducive to additional stimulus. Probably what we are going to get is comment to the fact that the economy is performing in line with the Central Bank’s base line scenario. The market expectations will be more reinforced that QE2 ends on schedule.