Nifty nears 8550, Sensex wobbly; Tata Motors & HUL down 2%

Moneycontrol Bureau11:55 am Hurdle for Taj Mansingh: The Delhi High Court on Thursday allowed New Delhi Municipal Committee (NDMC) to proceed with the auction process of the Taj Mansingh Hotel.

Delhi High Court dismissed the plea to made by the Indian Hotels Co (IHCL), a subsidiary of Tata Group, to renew its licence and upheld NDMC's decision to go for auction.

On September 25, a single judge had dismissed the suit by the current operator IHCL, to renew its licence and upheld the NDMC's decision to go for auction. The following day, the IHCL filed an appeal before the division bench against this order.

11:45 am Exclusive: Sources tell CNBC-TV18 that State Bank of India, a major lender to Tata Group companies, is meeting today. The purpose of the meeting chaired by Chairman Arundhati Bhattacharya is to take stock of the bank’s exposure to Tata Group companies in case there are write-offs.

Further, CNCB-TV18 gathers from its sources that SBI’s total likely exposure to Tata Group companies could be slightly above Rs 50,000 crore. Its subsidiaries total exposure could be over Rs 70,000 crore.

11:30 am Result analysis: Analysts gave a thumbs-up to Hero MotoCorp after the two-wheeler company reported a net profit of Rs 1,004 crore for the second quarter ended September, up 30 percent from Rs 786 crore in the year-ago period.

Total income rose 15 percent to around Rs 8,449 crore during the period from Rs 7,346 crore in July-September quarter last year, the company said in a filing to BSE.

Prakash Diwan of Altamount Capital termed the performance as great but said that the company’s profit and margins story needs to be seen with a headroom of it diminishing towards the last quarter of the fiscal year 2016-17. He said the company will have to roll out new models and have a healthy product mix to tackle competition. This, he added, will rev up profits for Hero MotoCorp, he said.

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The market is still struggling under selling presurre on September Futures and options (F&O) expiry day. The Sensex is down 109.27 points or 0.4 percent at 27727.24 and the Nifty is down 46.50 points or 0.5 percent at 8568.75. About 912 shares have advanced, 1340 shares declined, and 174 shares are unchanged.

ITC, Dr Reddy's Labs, HDFC, Sun Pharma and ONGC are top gainers while Asian Paints, Tata Motors, HUL, Wipro and Hero MotoCorp are losers in the Sensex.

Continuing its winning run, gold prices rose by another Rs 32 to Rs 29,866 per 10 gram in futures trade today amid a firm global trend.

Analysts attributed persistent rise in gold prices at futures trade to a firming trend overseas and ongoing festive and wedding season demand from jewellers in the domestic spot market.

Meanwhile, gold edged higher 0.03 per cent to USD 1,267.10 an ounce in Singapore.