Moneycontrol Bureau
9:55 am Satyam case: The much-awaited verdict in the Satyam case is likely later on Monday. The Satyam case has often been touted as India’s Enron moment ironically for the company whose name in Hindi translates to ‘truth’, which has become synonymous to the biggest accounting fraud which CBI suspects goes way back to 1999. The primary proponent here was Ramalinga Raju who the CBI suspects had engaged in fraud worth Rs 7,000 crore causing a loss of Rs 14,000 crore of investors. The CBI claims there was vast fake in-voicing, which led to fraudulently increasing of revenues and profits. At the same time it inflated the stock, it inflated the bank balance of the company giving false assurances to investors.
9:44 am Market check: The market is slipping away under selling pressure. The Sensex is down 363.81 points or 1 percent at 29085.14 and the Nifty is down 119.70 points or 1 percent at 8818.05. About 615 shares have advanced, 1129 shares declined, and 164 shares are unchanged.
Axis Bank, Hindalco, Sesa Sterlite, ICICI Bank and GAIL are among laggards in the Sensex.
9:30 am DLF: India's largest realty firm DLF plans to monetise properties worth about Rs 15,000 crore under various projects to boost its cash flow and reduce debt, a senior company official said. DLF had a net debt of Rs 20,336 crore at the end of the December quarter. "We have a total of Rs 14,000-15,000 crore stocks. Out of this, Rs 4,000 crore is in finished projects and more than Rs 10,000 crore is unsold stocks in projects which are launched and are under development," DLF Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Ashok Tyagi said.
These stocks would get monetised as and when the demand picks up resulting in improvement in cash-flow as well as reduction of debt, he said when asked about the company's strategy to reduce the huge debt.
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The market opened sharply lower on first day of the week with the Sensex falling 310.43 points or 1.05 percent to 29138.52 on weak global cues. Banking & financials and technology stocks pulled the market down.
The Nifty shed 95.15 points or 1.06 percent to 8842.60. About 315 shares have advanced, 634 shares declined, and 113 shares are unchanged on the BSE.
TCS, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, Axis Bank, HDFC, Infosys, Sun Pharma, L&T, SBI, ONGC, M&M and Sesa Sterlite lost 1-3 percent while Dr Reddy's Labs, Reliance Industries and Coal India gained.
The Indian rupee slipped 45 paise at 62.61 per dollar against Thursday's closing value of 62.16 a dollar.
Pramit Brahmbhatt of Veracity said, "Asian markets have already opened on a strong note taking cues from a better than expected US jobs data. We expect the rupee to appreciate today backed by the strong equities but strength in dollar may put some pressure. We see the range for the rupee between 61.80-62.50/dollar."
Asian markets too are trading lower following a weak US handover. The Japanese economy grew less than previously thought in the final quarter of 2014. GDP grew an annualized 1.5 percent in the October-December period, down from an initial reading of 2.2 percent in February, which still showed Japan emerging out of recession.
In the US, stocks closed down more than 1 percent on Friday as investors weighed jobs report that indicated an interest rate hike could come sooner rather than later. February's non-farm jobs report showed a gain of 295,000, above expectations of 240,000 in February, down from 257,000 in January. The unemployment rate fell to 5.5 percent, while hourly wages ticked up 0.1 percent.
The US 10-year treasury note yield rose to 2.25 percent.
In the currency space, the dollar rose to a fresh 11-year high against a basket of major currencies on expectations of a interest rate hike sooner rather than later. In commodities, Nymex crude traded below 50 dollars per barrel while Brent stood at sub-60 dollars.
From precious metals space, gold had its worst day since December 2013 on Friday again on the back of data coming out of the US. Currently gold trades at around 1170 dollars an ounce.
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