Bank Nifty up 1.5% post FM meet with PSUs; Tata Power falls

Moneycontrol BureauLive Market Commentary

03:40 pm Market closing

The market ended on a strong note after a busy day as Election Commission announced the 9-phased polling dates starting from April 7-May 12. FM's assurance after meeting PSU banks CEO also boosted sentiments. Bank Nifty ended with a gain of 1.5 percent with major contribution from state-owned banks like Bank of Baroda, United Bank and PNB.

ICICI Bank, Coal India, Cipla, SBI and Maruti Suzuki were top gainers in the Sensex. Among the losers were Tata Power, Bharti Airtel, GAIL, Reliance and Tata Motors.

The Nifty was 30.70 points at 6328.65 while the Sensex closed at 21276.86, up 67.13 points. About 1481 shares advanced, 1172 shares declined, and 148 shares were unchanged.

03:30 pm Macro data

India's exports will not be able to achieve the target of USD 325 billion in the current fiscal and will fall short by about USD 10 billion, FIEO said.

"Domestic factors like declining manufacturing growth and slow improvement in the global demand are the main reasons for slow growth in the country's exports.

"We will not be able to achieve the USD 325 billion exports target," Federation of Indian Exports Organisation (FIEO) President Rafeeq Ahmed said.

03:20 pm Earnings

Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Ltd (RINL), the corporate entity of Vizag Steel, today said its turnover up to February 28 in the current fiscal recorded 2 percent growth to Rs 11,766 crore.

The PSU had clocked Rs 11,504 crore revenue for the 11 months period of last fiscal, 2012-13.

Exports recorded 72 percent growth at Rs 725 crore during the 11-month period compared to of Rs 421 crores for the same period last year, 2013-14.

According to a release issued by the steel maker, during February, it reported 11 per cent and 20 per cent growth in liquid steel and saleable steel production respectively compared to February 2013.

03:10 pm Macro outlook

The new government will need to revive investments and push infrastructure projects within the three months of being elected to bring economic growth back on track, Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia has said.

"In my view, if these problems are not solved within the first three months, you can forget about getting back to high (economic) growth," Ahluwalia said when asked how important reviving investments and pushing growth would be for the new government after the general elections. Speaking on the sidelines of a CII conference titled.

"Reviving Investments: Imperatives of Project Clearance', he said, "Any government that fails to solve this should actually announce that we cancel the growth path." An annual average economic growth of 8 percent is targetted in the 12th Five Year Plan (2012-17), which was approved by the country's apex decision making body National Development Council (NDC) and all cabinet and chief ministers on its board in December 2012.

02:55pm Bharti Infratel still on buyers' radar

Bharti Infratel gained for the sixth consecutive day on Wednesday. Tower infrastructure provider on Tuesday signed a master services agreement with Reliance Jio Infocomm, a subsidiary of Reliance Industries. The stock rallied 26 percent in six sessions and today gained as much as 12 percent to touch a 52-week high of Rs 205 apiece. Now it is up 5.4 percent.

According to agreement, Reliance Jio would utilise the telecom tower infrastructure of Bharti Infratel to launch its services across the country and the pricing would be at ‘arm’s length,’ based on prevailing market rates, the company said in its filing.

"We are delighted with this agreement to offer our world-class telecom infrastructure to Reliance Jio. The agreement would also benefit our existing customers with lower rentals and energy charges as a result of additional sharing," DS Rawat, CEO, Bharti Infratel said.

Meanwhile, Sanjay Mashruwala, managing director, Reliance Jio said this agreement was aimed at avoiding duplication of infrastructure, wherever possible, and to preserve capital and the environment. "The agreement will help us with the faster roll out of our services across the country," he added.

Bharti Infratel, which has 35,000 towers of its own, has 42 percent stake in Indus Towers. Hence, Reliance Jio will have access to 82,000 towers across the 22 telecom circles.

02:45pm NHAI talks to CNBC-TV18

The Finance Ministry decision to reschedule premium for roads, as suggested by the Rangarajan Committee, is likely to benefit 21 highway projects, says RP Singh, Chairman NHAI. "Almost all big concessionaries are likely to benefit from the new norms," he told CNBC-TV18's Latha Venkatesh and Sonia Shenoy.

The approval is effective from today while Highway Ministry and the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) will take it up on case-to-case basis now.

As per the new norms, the developer will have to pay interest equal to bank rate+2 percent on premium amount deferred. The road developer will have to clear due premium collected due to years of deferment a year before its concession period gets over. The recommendations also propose penalty for projects, where delay on account of fault of project developer.

Post this move, road projects worth Rs 20,000 crore (awarded between 2011 and 2013) could be scrapped and might see re-bidding. According to Singh, projects where construction has started are also eligible. He said projects for 2 to 4 laning expansion will benefit majorly from the norms.  The FY14 target for road awards was revised down from 9,000 km to 5,000 km.

02:35pm Autoline Industries spikes 8%

Shares of Autoline Industries rose 8 percent ahead of its board meeting scheduled on March 11.

The company said that the board will look at various options of raising funds to meet funding requirements via full disinvestment of stock or shares in Autoline Industries Inc, USA.

“The trading window for dealing in securities of the company will therefore, remain closed from March 04, 2014 to March 12, 2014 as per the company's policy and procedure on Insider Trading framed pursuant to SEBI (Prohibition of Insider Trading) Regulations, 1992 as amended from time to time,” it said in a statement to BSE.

The Pune-based leading auto components manufacturer had acquired the US arm in 2007. The US arm produces automotive bottle jacks, scissor jacks and related products for automotive jack tool kits. Through Autoline Industries Inc. USA, it had started operations by the name of Autoline Stampings Limited in South Korea, to support a Global Small Car Program of OEMs.

02:25pm SpiceJet flies 7% post management overhaul

Low-cost airline SpiceJet announced a major top-management reshuffle on Tuesday.

The troubled airline, which triggered a fare war in the Indian skies over the past few months, has re-appointed R Neelakantan as CFO.

Neelakantan served as SpiceJet’s chief financial officer from November 2010 to February 2013, and is returning to this role after serving as the Head of Internal Audit for the Sun Group (of which SpiceJet is a part) in the interim period.

The move follows after the current CFO Sam Issac quit the airline, apparently over differences on operational policy, said media reports.

In February, SpiceJet named Kaneswaran Avili as its Chief Commercial Officer (CCO).

SpiceJet has also appointed Shilpa Bhatia as Senior VP of Sales and Distribution. Bhatia, who joined the airline from the Sahara Group two weeks ago, will be replacing V Raja, who is due to retire by month-end.

The airline further announced the appointment of Sudhakar Kondisetty as Senior VP of Information Technology. Kondisetty replaces Virendar Pal, who had also earlier expressed his desire to pursue other opportunities.

Also, Fares Azeem Kilpady, from Air Asia X, will be joining the airline as VP and Head of Revenue Management from from April 1. Anurag Jain will now take on the role of Senior VP, Network Planning and Strategy Development.

“I am delighted at the addition of highly talented and experienced professionals with world class credentials to the SpiceJet management team,” said Chief Operating Officer Sanjiv Kapoor.

02:15pm Market Expert

The consensus expectation in the market is for a Narendra Modi led government to come into power, and if that happens then the market is sure to react positively believes Girish Pai, Director, Claritas Research.

According to him one could see a  5-10 percent run up for the Indian market till May 2014, and in case the election results are positive then it could see a further run up but beyond that the market will focus on execution of policies that the new government will announce.

Therefore, one can expect a positive undertone to the market at least till the run up to the Budget since no one believes that Narendra Modi has a magic wand that would set things right immediately says Pai.

If a pro-growth government comes to power then cyclicals-trade would come into focus because some of the money that is focused on defensives like IT, Pharma etc would shift into cyclicals like cheaper private banks, larger PSU banks, capital goods, some oil and gas companies says Pai.

However, Pai expects FY15 to be a difficult year for our market and sees in a 5% range.

02:00pm The market gained more strength in last hour of trade supported by banks and technology stocks. However, European markets are flat after previous day's rally.

The Sensex rose 81.49 points to 21291.22 and the Nifty advanced 30.30 points to 6328.25. Advancers beat decliners by a ratio of 1374 to 1139 on the BSE.

PSU banks are strong with the Bank of Baroda and Punjab National Bank rallying 5-6 percent followed by State Bank of India with 1.7 percent upmove. Private sector lender ICICI Bank surged 2 percent and Axis Bank advanced over a percent.

Finance minister P Chidambaram said the government would provide additional capital to PSU banks. "Banks must look to retain earnings to infuse capital. The government will give more capital to help PSU banks meet basel norms," he elaborated.

Non-banking finance company IDFC jumped over 3 percent. Chidambaram said Reserve Bank of India has indicated bank licences process will continue. It is an indication that RBI will issue bank licences before March, he added.