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Rahul Gandhi stayed night with Dalit people

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Sep 242009
 

rahul-gandhiAfter a brief lull in activity immediately after the impressive Lok Sabha results from the state, the Congress General Secretary Rahul
Gandhi has again started touring Uttar Pradesh much to the discomfort of Chief Minister Mayawati.

After a surprise tour of several districts in the state on Wednesday Rahul Gandhi once again chose to spend the night at a remote village in district Shravasti sharing meals with the Dalit villagers, an act which in the past has attracted harsh comments from the Dalit czarina Mayawati.

Making its displeasure on Rahul’s latest forays in the state amply clear the state government is preparing to take up the issue such surprise visits with the centre on the ground that they amount a security lapse and pose a serious threat if the state administration is not taken into confidence.

Rahul Gandhi took the state government and his party leaders, who were not even aware of his arrival, by surprise on Wednesday when he went on an extensive tour of the state by road accompanied only by his SPG security personnel.

What was initially planned as a visit to his constituency Amethi to inspect the Lifeline Express, Rahul Gandhi suddenly converted it into a surprise tour of the state getting his cavalcade to turn towards Barabanki.

His unexpected presence among the locals there caused a flutter and Rahul interacted with the locals asking them about their problems and issues. He then traveled to Bahraich, Gonda and Faizabad all along keeping the state government and Congress leaders wondering about his location and purpose of visit. The state police was thrown into a tizzy as it could not keep track of Rahul’s movement or confirm his next destination.

Meanwhile Rahul Gandhi mingled freely with the locals wherever he halted along the way and also reportedly got a bad stretch of road on Gonda-Lucknow highway video recorded. Interestingly most of the places Rahul Gandhi visited were those which elected Congress leaders as their representatives in the recent Lok Sabha elections.

Later again throwing up a surprise on his party leaders eager to welcome him and hoodwinking the state police Rahul Gandhi spent the night at a remote village in district Shrawasti. He stayed at the Chutkaideh village in Shravasti district where the Dalit Gram Pradhan Chhedi Pasi played his host. His presence at the village where he interacted with poor villagers and shared their dinner became clear only on Thursday morning.

While Rahul Gandhi has been touring the state since last year in his effort to revive the Congress, his night halts at Dalit villages and sharing meals with them has earned him the ire of Dalit czarina Mayawati. She has repeatedly hit out at Rahul Gandhi for these acts calling it a “drama” sensing his efforts to woo the Dalit votebase from the BSP.
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India for continuance of stimulus package

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Sep 242009
 

indias-prime-ministerIndia will seek continuance of the stimulus package, devised to get the global economy out of the worst crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s, at the G-20 Summit here on Thursday, while pitching strongly against any attempts at protectionism and advocating reforms of the international financial institutions.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh leads the Indian delegation at the summit, being hosted by President Barack Obama. He will voice the developing countries’ view that the advanced nations should return to the trend growth and stabilisation of the banking and financial sectors as it affected exports, capital flows and investment of the emerging economies.

Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia, National Security Adviser M K Narayanan, Finance Secretary Ashok Chawla are a part of the Indian delegation attending the summit which will be attended by world leaders including British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy among others. The summit represents 90 per cent of the world’s GDP, 80 per cent of the world trade and two-thirds of humanity.

Another important area India would concentrate on is the reform of the international financial institutions and a continuous increase in the capital base of multilateral development banks, to finance the massive infrastructure needs of emerging markets.

The expansion and strengthening of the erstwhile Financial Stability Forum and now the Financial Stability Board and the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision was a step in the right direction to address the regulatory aspects, feels India. It wants process of governance reform of international financial institutions be given greater voice and representation by under-represented countries.

The Pittsburgh Summit is expected to focus on medium and long term issues such as a framework for sustainable and balanced growth, strengthening the international financial regulatory system, reforming the mandate mission and governance of the International Monetary Fund and development banks, strengthening support for the most vulnerable, an open global economy and energy and climate change.

In view of the climate change summit scheduled for end of this year, India is against any mandatory caps on carbon emissions without taking into account the factor of historical responsibilities on the part of the developed countries.
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Rupee flat on weak dollar

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Sep 242009
 

finance1The rupee traded flat with a weak dollar failing to help the local unit against downswing in stocks and demand from oil companies for the
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greenback to meet their import requirements. Dealers expect the local unit to trade higher in the next few sessions as global traders move their funds towards emerging market assets.

The rupee traded at 48.06 against the dollar at 12:30pm Thursday, after closing just above the 48 dollar mark on Wednesday. The dollar index – a gauge of the greenback’s movement against six global majors – was down 0.4% by noon. The index hit a one-year low last week. The dollar has been losing sharply this month as investors are increasingly shifting into riskier assets on increasing signs the global economy is recovering.
Government bonds traded marginally higher with RBI set to buy upto Rs 6,000 crore of securities from traders today. US treasuries rose after the Federal Reserve said in a statement it would extend its purchases of mortgage backed securities. The Federal Reserve said it would keep interest rates low, dismissing all speculation that it may be preparing for an eventual tightening of monetary policy.

The run-up in prices comes amidst the government announced plans to auction Rs 12,000 crore of fresh bonds this week, Rs 4,000 crore more than indicated in a calendar. The yield on the 10-year benchmark bond traded at 7.06 at 12:30pm, lower than Wednesday’s closing of 7.08%. The 10-year yield fell 27 basis points last week on expectations that the central government borrowing calendar is near its final stage.
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Asian shares down,

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Sep 242009
 

equity-negliAsian shares outside Japan fell on Thursday, mirroring investor caution in the United States, while the dollar was steady after the
Fed reiterated interest rates would stay low for a long period.

Japan’s benchmark Nikkei index jumped 1.7 percent after a three-day holiday break, but the rise reflected gains made in the rest of the region at the start of the week.

A 0.8 percent slide in the Dow Jones on Wednesday, however, weighed on the rest of Asia’s markets and the MSCI index of Asia Pacific stocks traded outside Japan was down 1.2 percent.

Shares in Korea fell more than 1 percent with some concern that a strengthening Korean won could hurt export competitiveness.

In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng Index shed 2 percent and new listing Metallurgical Corp of China, a Chinese engineering company and the market’s biggest IPO so far this year, skidded nearly 15 percent below its issue price. Analysts said its price had been too high given an expected slowdown in investment in China’s steel industry.

The dollar was up 0.4 percent against a basket of currencies, reflecting reasonably calm reaction after the Fed upgraded its view of the US economy and indicated it was closer to pulling back on extraordinary stimulus measures while also reiterating a pledge to keep rates very low for a long period.

However, traders said its commitment to loose monetary policy means the dollar could come under renewed pressure soon as it is used to fund carry trades.

“As things stand, the Fed is in absolutely no hurry to even think about normalising policy,” said Stephen Stanley, chief economist at RBS in Greenwich, Connecticut. “This remains a very dovish Fed.”

SONY SURGES, JAL PLUNGES Japan outperformed otherwise weak Asian share markets, although data showing a slump in Japanese exports last month was a further indication that economic recovery will be shaky.

Electronics maker Sony Corp surged 3.3 percent after the company said sales of the PlayStation 3 video game console jumped after a price cut last month, but Japan Airlines plunged 11.1 percent after sources said the struggling carrier might be broken up and public broadcaster NHK reported the airline may seek a public bail-out.

Markets will be eying a two-day G20 summit in Pittsburgh starting on Thursday for further clues on the health of the global economy and when governments might start rolling back support measures for economic growth.

Japanese and Korean government bonds followed US Treasuries higher on the Fed’s dovish stance although gains in Japanese treasuries were capped by a rising equity market.

December 10-year Japanese government bond futures rose 0.13 point to 138.68.

Gold bounced back to around $1,010 an ounce, after sliding to a New York close at $1,007.05. It has been supported by underlying weakness in the US dollar and is now about 1 percent off an 18-month high reached last Thursday at $1,023.85.
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Japan’s Nikkei average rose 1.7 percent

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Sep 242009
 

nikkei-houseJapan’s Nikkei average rose 1.7 percent to a one-month closing high on Thursday, lifted by exporters such as Kyocera Corp as investors
played catch-up after returning from a string of public holidays.

Fast Retailing Co jumped after Goldman Sachs raised its rating on the stock to “buy” from “neutral”, while Toshiba Corp climbed after Credit Suisse upgraded the stock to “outperform” from “neutral” and hiked its target price.

But Japan Airlines and consumer lender Aiful continued to be dogged by negative news.

JAL tumbled nearly 16 percent after sources said the company might be broken up and public broadcaster NHK reported it is planning to seek a taxpayer-funded bailout to overhaul its operations.

Aiful shares plunged about 24 percent after the lender said it would halve its workforce and slash branch numbers as it warned of a $3.4 billion loss for the year to March 2010.

“Gains are due to a catch-up in the market led by short-covering in stock futures,” said Mitsushige Akino, chief fund manager at Ichiyoshi investment Management.

“Japanese stocks couldn’t keep up with gains in U.S. stocks, particularly before the holiday here, on concerns about a stronger yen. Now that the holiday is over and Wall Street didn’t fall significantly during that time, investors are picking up stocks.”

In active trade, the benchmark Nikkei gained 173.68 points to 10,544.22, its highest finish since Aug. 26. It slipped 0.7 percent last week.

The broader Topix added 1.2 percent to 950.20. U.S. stocks fell on Wednesday, dented by profit-taking and as investors worried the Federal Reserve is closer to pulling back on extraordinary measures to inject funding to shore up the economy.

Yumi Nishimura, deputy general manager at Daiwa Securities SMBC, said the market will closely watch the Group of 20 meeting on Thursday and Friday, though few surprises are expected.

Leaders of the G20 countries meet in Pittsburgh in the United States, their third gathering since the collapse of investment bank Lehman Brothers a year ago and with their the focus now shifting from combating the worst recession since the 1930s to discussing how to prevent it from happening again.

“Improvement in the macro economy has been factored in, and the focus will likely shift to corporate earnings from the latter part of next week,” Nishimura said.

JAL, AIFUL TROUBLES JAL lost 15.8 percent to 144 yen. Earlier this week, two sources familiar with the matter said lenders to JAL may seek to split the carrier between its profitable and loss-making parts. [ID:nT38558]

“Nothing’s sure about JAL’s future. It’s already Japan’s GM,” said Mizuho Investors Securities analyst Takahiko Kishi.

“JAL would have to come up with really drastic restructuring to convince lenders or the government, but even if they do so, the market would doubt whether such measures could really be implemented.”

Aiful, which last week asked creditors to let it push back repayments on $3 billion in debt, said it plans to cut about 2,000 jobs, or about 49 percent of the group’s total workforce, by February.

It tumbled 23.9 percent to 102 yen. Uncertainty in the financial sector also hurt shares of major banks. Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group fell 0.4 percent to 527 yen and Mizuho Financial Group shed 5.2 percent to 184 yen.

But shares of Fast Retailing shot up 5.3 percent to 11,140 yen. Goldman Sachs said concerns about fall and winter sales are unwarranted and cited the earnings potential of its operations in Asia.

Toshiba climbed 3.8 percent to 496 yen. Credit Suisse cited expectations for a major turning point for NAND-type flash chip profit structure from volatility to stability.

Exporters gained, with electronics parts maker Kyocera climbing 4.5 percent to 8,440 yen, while Honda Motor advanced 1.6 percent to 2,875 yen and Tokyo Electron Ltd jumped 5.7 percent to 5,900 yen.

Sony Corp gained 3.1 percent to 2,670 yen. A Sony executive said on Wednesday that sales of the PlayStation 3 video game console jumped in the weeks after a $100 price cut last month, and strong demand could lead to empty shelves at retailers.
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European stocks fall

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Sep 242009
 

usstockEurope’s main stock markets fell at the open on Thursday after Wall Street closed lower overnight. London’s FTSE 100 index of leading shares slipped 0.12 per cent to 5,133.44 points, Frankfurt’s DAX 30 dropped 0.31 per cent to 5,684.49 points and in Paris the CAC 40 shed 0.33 per cent to 3,808.89.

US stocks slid on Wednesday in a choppy Wall Street session as investors reacted to a US Federal Reserve announcement that it would maintain its stimulus effort to support a fragile economic recovery.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.83 per cent to 9,748.55 points in a roller-coaster day that saw the blue-chip index briefly top 9,900 points.

The Fed on Wednesday acknowledged that the US economy was emerging from prolonged recession but maintained its near-zero interest rate and trillion-plus dollar effort to support the fragile recovery.

Tokyo’s benchmark Nikkei-225 index closed up 1.67 per cent on Thursday as investors there returned from a five-day break in an upbeat mood, heartened by better-than-expected domestic trade data, dealers said.

Other Asian markets were mostly lower,
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Jet Airways has secured shareholders

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Sep 242009
 

jet-airwaysPrivate airline Jet Airways has secured shareholders’ approval to raise up to $400 million at the company’s extra ordinary general
meeting held on Thursday.

“Shareholders at the extra ordinary general meeting of the company held on September 24, 2009 have passed the requisite resolution regarding the issuance of additional capital up to $400 million,” Jet said in a filing to the Bombay Stock Exchange.

The airline had earlier said it would raise the amount by private placement of shares with qualified institutional buyers or by Global Depository Receipts (GDRs), American Depository Receipts (ADRs) and Foreign Currency Convertible Bonds (FCCBs).
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NTPC signs pact with RIL

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Sep 242009
 

buy-ntpc-with-stoploss-ofState-run NTPC, India’s biggest power producer, on Thursday signed a pact with Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries to buy a part of natural gas allocated to it from K-G D6 fields at a rate of USD 4.2 per mmBtu.
NTPC will buy 0.61 million metric standard cubic meters of gas a day for its plant in Anta in Rajasthan, an industry official said. The gas will start flowing in the next 7-10 days, the official added.
The volumes are less than one-fourth of the 2.67 mmscmd gas the Government had allocated to NTPC.
The state-run power utility signed a Gas Sales and Purchase Agreement (GSPA) with RIL and a separate Gas Transportation Agreement with Reliance Gas Transportation Infrastructure Ltd.
The government had last year allocated 2.67 million cubic metres per day of K-G D6 gas to NTPC’s Kawas and Gandhar in Gujarat and Anta power plants in Rajasthan.
NTPC does not want to take RIL gas for Kawas and Gandhar plants because of the pending legal dispute over supply of gas at USD 2.34 per mmBtu price quoted by RIL in a 2004 tender.
“Against an allocation of 2.67 mmscmd, GSPA for only 0.61 mmscmd of gas for Anta unit will be signed for now,” he said. “Government will have to take a call on reallocating the remaining gas to NTPC’s other plants.”
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The BSE Sensex continued to trade lower in the trade,

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Sep 242009
 

bombay-stock1The BSE Sensex continued to trade lower in the afternoon trade, tracking losses across most of the global markets. Most Asian stock markets fell on Thursday as investors worried that support measures for the fragile global economy will be withdrawn too quickly. European markets were also lower in early trade.
The Sensex was down 130 points at 16,588, with Sterlite Ind, Hindalco and Infosys down between 2.5 per cent and 4 per cent. IT, metal, auto and realty stocks were under pressure. Among the few Sensex gainers, Bharti, NTPC and HDFC Bank were up over 2 per cent.
The declines across most of the global markets came after the Federal Reserve kept interest rates unchanged at a regular meeting in Washington Wednesday, as widely expected, and said the pace of economic activity has “picked up” since its last meeting in August. But the Fed also said it would again slow some of its purchases of mortgage-backed securities, which have been part of the extraordinary support the central bank has given the U.S. economy over the past year.
Investors have focused on when central bankers and governments will begin to unwind some of the measures they have taken to boost the global economy since the onset of the global financial crisis one year ago.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index was Asia’s biggest loser, falling 592.98, or 2.8 per cent to 20,102.54. South Korea’s Kospi declined 24.56, or 1.4 percent, to 1,686.91.
Most other markets also lost ground, including China’s Shanghai index, which fell 1.4 per cent, and Australia’s benchmark, down 0.8 per cent.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 stock average, closed for the first three days of this week due to a string of national holidays, was Asia’s biggest bright spot, gaining 89.32, or 0.9 per cent, 10,459.86. In New York on Wednesday, the Dow Jones industrial average fell 81.32, or 0.8 per cent, to 9,748.55. Broader indices also declined.
Oil prices were lower in Asia after falling nearly 4 per cent on Wednesday after an unexpected jump in US crude inventories suggested consumer demand remains in the doldrums. Benchmark crude for November delivery was down 64 cents at $68.33.
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Nifty ends Sep F&O series

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Sep 242009
 

10bn-share-bazaar-startIndian equity benchmarks ended a volatile session on a positive note on Thursday, led by pull back in banks and realty stocks in the second half of trade.

The indices opened on a negative note taking cues from subdued global markets. Trade was choppy with a negative bias for major part of the day as traders were busy settling positions on account of September F&O series expiry. However, bout of short covering in the last half hour helped the indices erase losses.

Experts are of the view that there may be some upmove left but a correction may creep in anytime soon. “Nifty may scale another 100-200 points but it will find it difficult to hold on. A correction is overdue and it may happen next week once the settlement is over. We may see market slipping another 10 per cent from highs,” said Rajesh Agarwal, director of research, CD Equisearch

Bombay Stock Exchange’s Sensex ended at 16,781.43, up 61.93 points or 0.37 per cent. The index touched a high of 16834.10 and low of 16494.92 intraday.

National Stock Exchange’s Nifty closed at 4986.55, up 16.6 points or 0.33 per cent. The broader index hit a high of 5016.70 and low of 4904.05.

“Lots of midcap stocks are quoting at attractive levels and should be bought on correction. Container Corporation, IOC and Maharashtra Seamless are looking good,” Agarwal added.

The BSE Midcap Index was up 0.74 per cent and BSE Smallcap Index gained 0.46 per cent.

Amongst the sectoral indices, BSE Bankex moved up 1.48 per cent, BSE Healthcare Index rose up 0.91 per cent and BSE Realty Index advanced 0.67 per cent. However, the BSE IT Index slipped 1.59 per cent and BSE Metal Index moved down 1.13 per cent.

Sensex gainers comprised HDFC (3.85%), HDFC Bank (3.72%), HCL Technologies (3.54%), BPCL (3.32%) and Ranbaxy Laboratories (2.62%).

Market breadth on BSE showed 1,466 advances against 1,289 declines.

Meanwhile, India’s wholesale price index-based inflation rate rose 0.37 per cent in the week ended September 12 compared to 0.12 per cent a week earlier. Analysts expect inflation to cross 6 per cent by the end of fiscal year 2009-10.

Elsewhere, European markets were in the red led by losses in financial and commodities. US stock futures also indicated a mixed opening. Dow Jones stock futures was down 0.01 per cent while Nasdaq 100 up 0.14 per cent.
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