Market cues: Inflation, growth, earnings and markets

US stocks fell yesterday, paring gains from the best Standard & Poor’s 500 Index rally over seven days since 2009. This came amid lower earnings from JPMorgan Chase & Co and concern that equities rose too much on optimism about Europe’s debt crisis.

Europe too ended lower after gaining nearly 6-7% in last six trading sessions. The CAC down 1.33%, DAX is down 1.33% and FTSE is down 0.71%.

Asia is soft in opening trade today. The Nikkei, Hang Seng, Kospi, Taiwan are down nearly 0.5%, while Shanghai trades flat.

In the commodity space, crude oil futures are down 1.6% at USD 84.23/bbl while gold trades around USD 1668 per ounce. Natural gas is up 1.2% after hitting one-year lows at USD 3.45.

Dollar climbed 11 bps against the euro at 1.37. The yen trades flat versus the dollar at 76.86.

Domestic cues to keep track of:

Ashok Chawla has been named by the Cabinet as the chief of the Competition Commission of India.

Meanwhile, Galleon Group co-founder, Raj Rajaratnam is sentenced to 11 years in prison for masterminding the biggest insider trading scheme in over 20 years. He's also been fined USD 10 million.

Even as the worker strike continues, RC Bhargava of Maruti Suzuki has said that it is unlikely that the 44 sacked employees will be taken back. The Punjab and Haryana government has directed the striking workers to vacate the plant premises.

CBI’s FIR against the Maran brothers reveals Maxis violated the 74% FDI limit in Aircel. CBI alleges that Dayanidhi Maran delayed license approval for Aircel and ‘directed’ Aircel promoter Sivasankaran to sell the company only to maxis.

Meanwhile, the brother, Kalanithi Maran has been allotted 3.5 crore shares of Spice Jet at Rs 36.48 per share (Current market price is Rs 21.05). His promoter stake in the company is set to go up from 38.6% to 43%.

Kingfisher employees were roughed up yesterday after the airline delayed six flights owing  to HPCL refusing to provide fuel unless Kingfisher pays its dues. All check-ins have been stopped. The airliner owes HPCL approximately Rs 100-130 crore, sources say. Fuel supply was resumed late last night. Watch out for the stock trade today!

Saroj Datta who has been with Jet Airways for over two decades is stepping down as board member and executive director of the airliner. 

PE firm Carlyle and Advent are in race to pick up British Telecom’s 23.2% stake in Tech Mahindra , reports say.

Lilliput Kidswear has alleged that anonymous callers are trying to defame the company. It has gone to the police and written to banks saying the IPO was sabotaged.

Also watch out for how Coal India trades today. It announced that though production is lagging for FY12, e-auction quota remains intact for the full year and the diversion of coal to power companies will not have much of an impact on the company. 

The media reports that Reliance Infra is in talks to buy Rs 2000 crore road projects in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.

Also, Century Textiles ’ cement business is set to merge with UltraTech .

Listing today: Tijaria Polypipes (Issue price Rs 60 per share)

Results Today: Geojit BNP Paribas Financial Services, Balaji Telefilms, Heidelberg Cement, Infomedia 18, Gateway Distriparks, Reliance Industrial Infra, RS Software

Padma Venkatraman
p adma.venkatraman@network18online.com