Market Slides Into The Red As IIP Slows After Very Good Opening…

A much disappointing IIP figures for January 2008 which hit the market in noon trade session dragged the market to red in late trade in contrast to strong opening. The US Federal Reserve`s move to inject up to $200 billion of liquidity into already strained US financial markets triggered rally momentum across Asian and European counters.

16 shares from the 30-member Sensex declined.
Market breadth was negative.
Shares from metal and software slipped while real estate stocks and a few private sector banking stocks rose.

The 30-share BSE Sensex was down 36.61 points or 0.23% at 16,086.54 as per provisional closing. Sensex lost 59.06 points at day`s low of 16,064 touched in late trade. Sensex hit a high of 16,683 in early trade. At the day`s high, the Sensex gained 560 points. The Sensex oscillated in a band of 619 points in the day in volatile trade.

The broader based S&P CNX Nifty was down 3.10 points or 0.06% at 4,862.80 as per provisional closing. It struck high of 5,019.20 in early trade

As per data released by the government today afternoon, growth in index of industrial production (IIP) slipped to 5.3% in January 2008 as compared with 11.6% in January 2007, the lowest since October 2006, when it stood at 4.51%. Growth in the manufacturing sector declined to 5.9% in January 2008 as against 12.3% in January 2007.

The next trigger for the market would come from the figures of advance tax payment by corporates for the fourth installment, which falls due on 15 March 2008.

The market breadth (On BSE 1,448:1220. 59 shares remained unchanged)which was positive throughout the day, but turned negative in late trade as small-cap and mid-cap shares succumbed to selling pressure:

BSE Mid-Cap index was down 1.68% to 6,875.53
BSE Small-Cap index was down 0.54% to 8,512.92.
Both these indices underperformed the Sensex

The total turnover amounted to Rs 6372 crore as compared to Rs 5439 crore by 15:45 Indian Standard Time @ BSE.

Metal sector declined on profit booking. Hindalco Industries lost 6.51% to Rs 189.70 on 15.86 lakh shares. It was the top loser from BSE Sensex.

Tata Steel,slided 6.48% to Rs 766. The stock dropped sharply from day`s high of Rs 838 in early trade. The company reported 34.22% rise in consolidated net profit to Rs 1,415.54 crore on 428.61% spurt in total income to Rs 32,096.03 crore in Q3 December 2007 over Q3 December 2006. The results were announced before trading hours today, 12 March 2008.

Jindal Stainless (down 4.99% to Rs 138), Steel Authority of India (down 7.40% to Rs 216), and Jindal Saw (down 1.37% to Rs 790), were the other losers from metal pack.

But Cairn india did well today on account of its bid from ENI 247.00 15.60 (6.74%) BSE : Mar 12, 16:16 247.10 15.65 (6.76%) NSE.

IT majors extended losses in late trade. Infosys (down 3.41% to Rs 1379.90), Satyam Computer Services (down 4.74% to Rs 377.10), Wipro (down 0.22% to Rs 391.50), slipped. However India`s largest software services exporter TCS rose 0.58% to Rs 828

DLF (down 5.49% to Rs 708), Reliance Communications (down 2.29% to Rs 538.80), and Tata Motors (down 2.06% to Rs 745), edged lower from the Sensex pack.

Cipla, the country`s third largest pharma company in terms of net sales, advanced 4.03% to Rs 203.70 on 8.21 lakh shares. It was the top gainer from Sensex pack.

India`s largest private sector company in terms of market capitalisation and oil refiner Reliance Industries gained 0.58% to Rs 2360.25 on 8.25 lakh shares. The stock had hit a high of Rs 2428.95 in early trade. Private sector banks were firm. They had surged in early trade tracking rally in their ADRs on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on Tuesday, 11 March 2008. India`s second largest private sector bank in terms of net profit HDFC Bank rose 2.41% to Rs 1364.10 after its ADR surged 13% on the NYSE. ICICI Bank, the country`s largest private sector bank in terms of net profit jumped 3.35% to Rs 883 after its ADR jumped 10% on the NYSE. Both these shares saw strong start with HDFC Bank hitting high of Rs 1430 and ICICI Bank striking high of Rs 915.

However India`s largest bank in terms of assets State Bank of India slipped 5.65% to Rs 1783.90.

Reliance Energy (up 2.94% to Rs 1325), Grasim (up 4% to Rs 2901), and Bharti Airtel (up 2.93% to Rs 812.20), were the other gainers from Sensex pack.

Rural Electrification Corporation was at Rs 120.15 on BSE, a premium of 14.42% compared to IPO price of Rs 105. The stock debuted at Rs 125, a premium of 19.04% over issue price of Rs 105. The stock hit a high of Rs 128.40 and low of Rs 118.85 so far during the day. The counter saw high volumes of 6.74 crore shares on BSE.

European markets extended early gains today, 12 March 2008. Key benchmark indices from United Kingdom (up 1.64% to 5,783.80), Germany (up 1.56% to 6,626.38) and France (up 2.08% to 4,723.70) advanced.

Asian markets were trading firm today, 12 March 2008. Hong Kong`s Hang Seng (up 1.86% at 23,422.76), Japan`s Nikkei (up 1.60% at 12,861.13), Taiwan`s Taiwan Weighted (up 0.64% at 8,435.36), Singapore`s Straits Times (up 2% at 2,917.94) and South Korea`s Seoul Composite (up 1.06% at 1,658.83) advanced. However China`s Shanghai Composite index fell 2.30% to 4,070.11

US markets rallied the most in five years on Tuesday, 11 March 2008 after the US Federal Reserve decided to boost liquidity in order to shore up banks battered by mortgage- related losses. The US Federal Reserve announced that along with the European Central Bank and the central banks of Canada and Switzerland, it would loan investment banks money in exchange for debt, including mortgage-backed securities.

The Dow Jones industrial average jumped 416.66 points, or 3.6%, to 12,156.81. The Standard & Poor`s 500 index advanced 47.28 points, or 3.7%, to 1,320.65, while the Nasdaq Composite index added 86.42 points, or about 4%, to 2,255.76.

Back home, the 30-share BSE Sensex gained 199.43 points or 1.25% at 16,123.15 on Tuesday, 11 March 2008. The broader based S&P CNX Nifty advanced 65.50 points or 1.36% at 4,865.90 on that day.

Today, foreign institutional investors (FIIs) sold shares worth Rs 539.24 crore on Tuesday, 11 March 2008. Domestic institutional investors were net buyers of shares worth Rs 303.36 crore on that day.

Crude oil eased slightly today, 12 March 2008 after hitting a record of $109.72 yesterday, 11 March 2008 as investors grappled with a boost to the dollar after the US Federal Reserve and other central banks pumped fresh funds into the financial system.
U.S. crude for April delivery fell 5 cents to $108.70 a barrel. London Brent crude fell 1% to $105.24.

Glenn D. Porter Tells How To Get In Good With Customers….

It’s a plain fact: No matter how good your product or compelling your pitch, people tend to buy from people they like. The big question: How to get customers to like you?Building a rapport with buyers isn’t just about playing golf and slugging cocktails. Entertaining clients is part of the game, sure, but there’s so much more to it than that–as my buddy Barry, a fellow salesman, can attest.

A while back, in Philadelphia’s 30th Street train station, Barry was poking his index finger into my shoulder. He was loud and animated. “You had him in your pocket!” he kept saying. “There was nothing I could do.” Further post here.

Subprime Blues Hurt China Shares Goal

The US financial crisis stemming from subprime mortgage defaults is claiming another victim – the Chinese government’s policy of encouraging its citizens to trade in overseas shares to help curb excess liquidity in the economy and dispose of some of the country’s ever-growing foreign reserves.Individual Chinese can invest in overseas stocks indirectly, mainly in those listed in Hong Kong, through the Qualified Domestic Institutional Investor (QDII) scheme. All QDII funds launched so far are reporting losses and the scheme appears to have lost its attraction to small investors as they watch markets falling in reaction to the US subprime mortgage crisis.

The sluggish overseas markets may also be a reason for Beijing virtually shelving indefinitely the so-called “through train” program that it intended would allow individual Chinese residents to trade directly in Hong Kong stocks. Further post here.

Indian Rupee Gains On US Fed’s Liquidity Moves, But..

The Indian Rupee got strengthened today, with silent sentiment bolstered by the U.S. Federal Reserves decision to inject liquidity into credit markets, though oil companies buying dollars capped the rupee’s rise.The partially convertible Rupee ended at 40.33/34 per dollar, stronger than the previous close of 40.45/46. Sentiment has improved due to the central bank activity yesterday,” said a senior trader with a foreign bank, referring to the Fed. As the rupee reached higher levels, we saw lots of exporters buying (Rupees),” he said.The Fed said on Tuesday it would add up to $200 billion in U.S. US Treasury bills to improve cash supplies in strained credit markets. Four other major central banks also announced measures to boost liquidity. The US Federal Goverment’s move helped U.S. stocks climb more than 3 percent on Tuesday, giving the S&P 500 index its best movement since October 2002.

Stocks Exchanges across Asia region also rallied, with indicies in Hong Kong. HSI and Tokyo. Nikkie 225 posted gains of more than 1.5 percent today.

But India’s main share index bucked the regional trend by ending flat on Wednesday, shedding early gains of up to 3.5 percent, after India’s industrial output in January grew by a weaker-than-expected 5.3 percent from a year earlier.

Analysts had given forecast an increase of 8 percent. “Huge Oil demand prevented the Indian currency from going beyond 40.29,” the trader at the one foreign bank said. Indian Crude refiners buy dollars to meet import commitments. “I think we will see (the rupee) moving back to the lower end of the range,” he said. “It’s unlikely to improve further.”

US crude Oil CLc1, regarded by investors as a safe haven from spiraling inflation and a weak dollar, continued to hover above $108.50 per barrel on Wednesday, not far off Tuesday’s record high of $109.72. India imports more than two-thirds of its oil. Rising crude prices could widen the trade deficit and could put downward pressure on the rupee.

Sun Outage

A sun outage is an interruption in or distortion of geostationary satellite signals caused by interference from solar radiation. The effect is due to the sun’s radiation overwhelming the satellite signal. Generally, sun outages occur in February, March, September and October, that is, around the time of the equinoxes. At these times, the apparent path of the sun across the sky takes it directly behind the line of sight between an earth station and a satellite. As the sun radiates strongly at the microwave frequencies used to communicate with satellites (C-band and Ku-band) the sun swamps the signal from the satellite. The effects of a sun outage can include partial degradation, that is, an increase in the error rate, or total destruction of the signal. Further post here.

Sun Outage Calculator is here.

What Do Ethanol And The Subprime Mortgage Meltdown Have In Common?

Each is a good reminder of that most powerful of unwritten decrees, the Law of Unintended Consequences – and of the all-too-frequent tendency of solutions imposed by the state to exacerbate the harms they were meant to solve.

Take ethanol, the much-hyped bio-fuel made (primarily) from corn. Ethanol has been touted as a weapon in the fashionable crusade against climate change, because when mixed with gasoline, it modestly reduces emissions of carbon dioxide. Reasoning that if a little ethanol is good, a lot must be better, Congress and the Bush administration recently mandated a sextupling of ethanol production, from the 6 billion gallons produced last year to 36 billion by 2022. Further Post here.

Sub-Prime Phun!!

I guess if you have to laugh about it, John Bird and John Fortune are about as good as it gets.

Cairn Soars After Rumours Of Bid From ENI

Cairn Energy, the Edinburgh-based oil and gas exploration and production company that has various interests in the Indian subcontinent, was the talk of the town yesterday. The speculation, which took Cairn to an intra-day high of 3,006p, centred on ENI, the Italian energy giant, which was said to be mulling a 4,000p-per-share bid for the company.ENI has a history of acquiring independent oil and gas companies, including British-Borneo and Lasmo. Most recently, near the end of 2007, it claimed Burren Energy, a UK-based oil producer with operations in Turkmenistan, Congo, Egypt and Yemen.  Further post here.