Morning brief for the stock market:

[K.Karthik Raja]

What India's Stocks Market Will Watch - Apr 17
Thursday, Apr 17- Morning brief for the stock market:

BIG PICTURE
* Met says 'near-normal' monsoon may set in early (Var)
* RBI says domestic output, prices under stress on global price rise
(NW18)
* Chidambaram says RBI to take suitable steps soon to tame inflation
(NW18)
* Chidambaram vows to smash steel, cement cartels; curb prices (Var)
* Govt to decide on farm futures ban if experts report delayed more
(NW18)
* Credit card business growth slowdown on rising defaults. (BL)
* Tougher Basel norms for structured capital products. (BL)
* Govt may restore 7-year tax holiday on oil, gas E&P (NW18)
* Indian crude basket touches new high of $106.39 a barrel (Var)
.
.
TOP EVENTS TODAY
* Earnings for quarter ended March to be detailed by: Clariant
Chemicals, CMC
Ltd., FAG Bearings, Lanxess ABS, Manali Petrochemical, MMTC, Rolta
India,
Sonata Software, VST Industries,
* Annual general meetings of: Clariant Chemicals, FAG Bearings,
Lanxess ABS.
* Board meeting of:
+ Banco Products to mull share buyback.
+ Manjushree Extrusions to approve name change.
+ Nestle India, Wheels India to mull interim dividend.
+ NRB Bearings to review FY09 business plan.
+ RT Exports to mull early redemption of preference shares.
.
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INDICATORS (previous session)
* Institutional net buy/(sale) in mln rupees, Apr 15: FIIs 809, MFs
1,218
* Sensex 16244.19, up 90.53 points; Nifty 4887.30, up 7.65 points
* Other markets:Crude:$114.96/bbl; rupee:39.95;gold $947.10/ounce;10-
yr
yld:8.08%
.
.
OUTLOOK
* To open up; volatile ahead of inflation data. (NW18)
.
.
GLOBAL STOCK MARKETS
* U.S. shares ended up Wednesday after strong results from Intel Corp
and
JPMorgan Chase & Co reassured investors that a slowing economy would
not dent
corporate earnings. Better-than-expected March industrial production
data also
lifted sentiment. It rose 0.3% in March, compared with expectations of
a 0.1%
fall. Exxon Mobil shares rose as crude oil prices topped $115 a barrel
on the
New York Mercantile Exchange.
.
* Key Asian markets were up, tracking gains on Wall Street, led by
shares of
exporters and mining companies. Financial shares were also up,
mirroring the
rise in their U.S. peers, after JPMorgan Chase & Co's results gave
rise to
hope that the worst of the credit crisis is over.
.
.
SECTOR NEWS
AUTOMOBILES: Car companies to hike prices by 4,000-16,000 rupees in
the next
few days. (ET)
.
AVIATION: Karnataka High Court has asked the central government to
"seriously"
consider keeping the old HAL Airport in Bangalore open for commercial
flight
operations and waiving user development fees from passengers at the
new
Bengaluru International Airport. (NW18)
Reliance Energy, Tata Changi consortium and Larsen and Toubro are
among
companies shortlisted for Amritsar and Udaipur airport upgrade. (Var)
Domestic airlines to take a $30 mln hit a month due to rising oil
prices.
(ET)
.
BANKS: Standard Chartered Bank will invest $250 mln in its Indian
operations,
raising the total capital base to $1.9 bln. (FE)
.
CEMENT: Holcim, AV Birla group and Lafarge are in race to buy Larsen
and
Toubro's read-mix concrete business. (ET)
.
ENERGY: Great Eastern Energy Corp. Ltd. is scouting for coal-bed
methane
projects overseas, focusing on blocks in Africa and North America
(NW18)
.
INFRASTRUCTURE: State Bank of India in tie-up with Macquarie group and
the
International Finance Corp. is floating at $2 bln fund for investment
in
infrastructure. (BL)
U.K. based private equity firm 3i group has raised $1.2 bln for
its India
infrastructure fund, which is about 20% higher than the initial $1 bln
target.
(FE)
.
MEDIA: Newsprint price hike forces newspapers to raise advertisement
rates.
(ET)
.
MUTUAL FUND: Securities and Exchange Board of India has approved net
settlement in government securities by mutual funds as per the
guidelines
issued by Reserve Bank of India and also their participation in the
'when
issued' market. (NW18)
.
OIL & GAS: Finance Minister Chidambaram has given an assurance over
restoration of seven-year tax holiday for oil, gas exploration and
production
companies. However, the same facility may not be awarded to refineries
commencing production after Apr 1, 2009. (FE)
.
RETAIL: Mahindra and Mahindra group has inked a 50:50 joint venture
with a
South African international supply chain -- Capespan. (ET)
.
TELECOMMUNICATION: TRAI has conveyed its agreement with Ministry of
Information & Broadcasting on proposal to reduce the licence fee on
direct-to-home service providers to 6% of the adjusted gross revenues
from 10%
now. (NW18)
Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd.'s cellular expansion plans have been hit
due to
delays in equipment suppl by state owned Indian Telephone Industries.
(BL)
Tata Teleservices is planning to raise more than $1 bln by selling
a chunk
of its shares to private equity. (ET)
.
.
STOCKS
* AZTECSOFT: Sees revenues of 3.13-3.25 bln rupees for financial year
2008-09, up about 14%. (NW18)
.
* BANK OF INDIA: Not expecting any mark-to-market losses on equity
trading and
derivatives exposure in Jan-Mar. (NW18)
.
* BHARTI AIRTEL: Expects additional spectrum in at least five more
circles.
(NW18)
.
* BHARAT HEAVY ELECTRICALS: NTPC would earmark minimum number of
projects for
equipment supplies by BHEL for its super-critical projects, provided
BHEL
matches the lowest bid NTPC gets. (BL)
.
* ULTRATECH CEMENT: Plans to invest 30 bln rupees in Gujarat to set up
3.5 mln
tn cement plant and 60 MW power project. (BS)
.
* DHANUS TECHNOLOGIES: On the verge of acquiring a company each in
U.S. and
Europe for a total transaction value of $4 mln (BS)
.
* FULFORD INDIA: Is looking at operational synergies with Organon
India. (NW18)
.
* GUJARAT ALKALIES: In joint venture with Dow Chemicals arm to produce
200,000
tn per annum of chloromethanes in Gujarat. (FE)
* KESORAM CEMENTS: Will invest up to 8.5 bln rupees to add 3.5 mln tn
by
2009.(BL)
.
* MERCK: Plans to launch 10-15 products in 2008, of which 20% will be
over-the-counter products. (NW18)
.
* ORCHID CHEMICALS: Ranbaxy is reportedly finalising a plans to
announce an
open offer for Orchid Chemicals. Group company Solrex's stake in
Chennai based
firm touches 14.7% (TOI)
* PETRONET LNG: Reported Jan-Mar net profit at 1.20 bln rupees up
13.2% on
year. Total income increased by 14.2% to 17.70 bln rupees. (NW18)
.
* POWER FINANCE CORP: Jan-Mar net profit fell 19.27% to 2.97 bln
rupees from
a year ago. (NW18)
.
* RELIANCE INDUSTRIES: Won contract to sell aviation turbine fuel to
National
Aviation Co. of India Ltd. at Madurai, Ranchi and Udaipur airports.
(Mint)
* SUZLON ENERGY: Has signed a three-year agreement to purchase
capturing and
filtering systems from Nederman India. The value of Nederman's
deliveries to
Suzlon Energy in 2008 will be 13 88 mln rupees. (NW18)
.
* TECH MAHINDRA: Has said it would invest 300 mln rupees in its new
development centre in Chennai. (NW18)
.
* ZEE ENTERTAINMENT: Head says it will post a 25-30% on year growth in
2008-09
(Apr-Mar) net profit despite losses incurred by general entertainment
channel
ZeeNext.
.
*ZENSAR TECHNOLOGIES: Is keenly looking towards Europe for an
acquisition. (FE)
End
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