Reports » India

Indian stock market daily morning report (August 24, 2010, Tuesday)

Contributed by Keynote Capitals

By Keynote Capitals

Views on markets today

- The Indian markets ended on a flat note yesterday starting off the week on a sluggish note. The benchmark indices stayed in a narrow trading range and were unable to find any specific direction. However, in the second half, key indices witnessed some upswing after the European markets opened in the green. All the sectoral indices closed positive except FMCG. Among the major gainers were, Consumer Durbles index (up 4%), followed by BSE PSU index (up 1%) and BSE Teck index (up 0.8%).

- Market breadth was strong at ~1.39x as investors bought large cap stocks. FIIs bought equities worth Rs3.18bn while domestic institutions sold equities of Rs1.59bn.

- The Asian markets were lower this morning in their early trade, weighed by overnight Wall Street losses. The Nikkei dropped below the 9,000 point mark for this first time in 15 months after U.S. stocks weakened, The Hang Seng is also trading lower.

- The Indian markets may start the session lower, owing to the weak cues from the Asian and US markets.

Economic and Corporate Developments

- The RBI plans to have access to banking data online from the industry is being stymied by state-owned banks’ reluctance to use technology that they have already deployed.

Buzzing Stocks

- State-owned ONGC, OIL and Gail may make a joint bid to counter Vedanta Resources’ US$8.48bn offer for majority stake in Cairn India, and have already got US$10bn in loan commitments from international banks for the move.

- Cairn India Ltd has struck oil and gas in an onshore block in the Krishna-Godavari basin, in Andhra Pradesh.

- NTPC will be duly compensated for the cancellation of its 600MW hydro power project at Loharinag Pala in Uttarakhand

- L&T has bagged two orders worth Rs12bn from ONGC for setting up additional processing units at the corporation's gas complexes in Hazira and Uran.

- IOB has raised its benchmark prime lending rate (BPLR) by 50bps to 12.50% effective 23rd August.

- PTC India Financial Services has been given infrastructure financial company status by the Reserve Bank of India.

- Tata Global Beverages, formerly Tata Tea, is considering restructuring the company’s operations at various levels and aiming to launch a new nutrition-based beverage.

- Elecon Engineering’s material handling equipment division had received orders to the tune of Rs0.4bn for various design, engineering, manufacturing and installation works.

US markets

The US markets slipped in one of the lightest volume sessions of the year on Monday as investors took refuge in defensive shares after the latest corporate mergers and acquisitions failed to soothe concerns the recovery is stalling. The US markets, the world's largest economy, have been in concerns over the pace of global economic growth in recent days, which have weighed on world markets.