indian stock market

VADODARA: About 2,500 employees of Reliance Industries working at its plants here will go on strike on October 24 demanding a hike in Rs 33,000 bonus offered. All three labour unions affiliated with AITUC, INTUC and BMS have given notice to the managemen t of the company and labour commissioner in this regard. Before merger of government-owned IPCL with Reliance in April 2007, they were employees of the government-owned IPCL. Union leaders said RIL's bonus offer of Rs 33,000 was not acceptable to them. Last year it was Rs 40,000. They also questioned the wisdom of RIL management on fixing different amounts of bonus for employees working in plants located in different parts of the country. Union leaders said RIL's profit is more than Rs 11,000 crore. The leaders' said the company management failed to provide them production data-sheet and computation sheet despite repeated demand. They said these demands were raised in a meeting between local management of th

Tata Steel lost 6.38% to Rs 252.55 at 14:50 IST on BSE after its UK unit Corus decided to cut production. The company made this announcement after trading hours on Thursday, 16 October 2008. Meanwhile, the BSE Sensex was down 466.66 points, or 4.41%, to 10,114.83. On BSE, 20.23 lakh shares were traded in the counter. The stock had an average daily volume of 17.86 lakh shares in the past one quarter. The stock hit a 52-week low of Rs 250 in intra-day trade. It hit a high of Rs 279.40 so far during the day. The stock has a 52-week high of Rs 969.80 on 29 October 2007. The mid-cap stock had underperformed the market over the past one month till 16 October 2008, declining 44.67% as compared to the Sensex's decline of 21.73%. It had also underperformed the market in the past one quarter, sliding 56.89% as compared to the Sensex's decline of 15.86%. The company's current equity is Rs 730.58 crore. Face value per share is Rs 10. The current price of Rs 252.55 d

The winner's curse: Even in the current stock environment, HUL is amongst the very few stocks that have managed to not just withstand value erosion but also give decent returns on an annualised basis. But this very strength of the company has now started looking like a weakness. In other words, while other index stocks have witnessed huge contraction in their valuation multiples, HUL has actually gone on to expand the same. This has resulted in the risk reward ratio of HUL becoming unfavorable, especially against the backdrop of vastly reduced valuations at some of the other companies. Investors should note that we are positive about the growth prospects of the company in the domestic markets. More importantly, we are enthused on the company's recent restructuring activities and foray into the still nascent foods and water businesses. However, the valuations, not just relative but also on a standalone basis are looking stretched from a medium term perspective. In

K.S. Badri Narayanan Chennai, Oct. 17 Though the Bombay Stock Exchange's benchmark index, Sensex, took 20 years to scale 10,000, the journey from 10K to 20K was undertaken in record time. It took 483 trading sessions for the benchmark to move from 10,000 to 20,000; but when the reversal happened, the Sensex crashed from 20,873.33 (closing high registered on February 7, 2008) to 9,975.35 in just 193 days. Slogans such as "India Shining", "India Growing", "foreign investors showing confidence in India", "emerging countries are going to be world leaders" accompanied the sharp surge in stock prices as the benchmark crossed one milestone after another. These cheers gave way to the more circumspect "technical reasons are behind the market's decline", "FIIs are pulling out of India", "India growth story is intact," and so on. Investors' Woes The sharp decline since the beginning of th

Parsvnath Developers slipped 0.70% to Rs 78.20 at 12:14 IST on BSE, despite bagging an order worth Rs 29.50 crore from the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation. The company announced the order win during trading hours today, 17 October 2008. On BSE, 75,049 shares were traded in the counter. The stock had an average daily volume of 2.98 lakh shares in the past one quarter. The stock hit a high of Rs 82 and low of Rs 77.80 so far during the day. The stock has a 52-week high of Rs 598 on 7 January 2008 and a 52-week low of Rs 64 on 10 October 2008. The mid-cap stock had underperformed the market over the past one month till 16 October 2008, declining 25.11% as compared to the Sensex's decline of 21.73%. It had also underperformed the market in the past one quarter, falling 23.80% as compared to the Sensex's decline of 15.86%. The company's current equity is Rs 184.70 crore. Face value per share is Rs 10. The current price of Rs 78.20 discounts the company's Q1 June 2008 annualized

The BSE Realty index surged 6.39% to 2,846.50, on hopes of reduction in interest rates on home loans. The index bounced back from a record low of 2,436.55 struck earlier in the day As per provisional closing, the BSE Sensex lost 270.95 points or 2.51% to 10,538.17 in choppy trade. DLF (up 2.96% at Rs 309), Unitech (up 5.7% at Rs 89.85), and Housing Development & Infrastructure (up 6.14% at Rs 127.85), rose. The BSE Realty index hit an all time high of on 13848.09 on 8 January 2008 Demand for real estate has decreased by nearly 25-30% in the country over the last 18 months, when home loan rates soared from an average of 7% to as high as 12-13%. The home loan rate in India is among the highest in the world and analysts expect it to be reduced by at least 100 basis points post the cut in cash reserve ratio by the Reserve Bank of India. On 15 October 2009, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) slashed cash reserve requirement (CRR) for banks by 100 basis points to 6.5% with

Reliance Industries lost 7.14% to Rs 1504 on BSE on fears the company may report fall in its gross refining margins in Q2 September 2008 over Q2 September 2007 largely due to sluggish demand for petroleum products in key Western markets. On BSE, 14.04 lakh shares were traded in the counter. The stock had an average daily volume of 13.69 lakh shares in the past one quarter. The stock hit a high of Rs 1598 and a low of Rs 1502.20 so far during the day. The stock has a 52-week high of Rs 3,252.10 on 15 January 2008 and a 52-week low of Rs 1,480 on 10 October 2008. India's largest private firm in terms of market capitalization and oil refiner outperformed the market over the past one month till 14 October 2008, declining 16.14% as compared to the Sensex's decline of 17.98%. It had underperformed the market in the past one quarter, falling 20.87% as compared to the Sensex's decline of 13.86%. The company's current equity is Rs 1,573.79 crore. Face value per

With the approval of cost variation claims and impending completion of the Bandra Worli Sealink, the worst is probably over for HCC. The impending completion of the Bandra-Worli Sealink is likely to expand profit margins. Vidya Bala Advertisement A strong order pipeline, improved profit margins, benefits from recent business restructuring and removal of uncertainty surrounding the unique Bandra-Worli Sealink project, provide better visibility to the earnings growth of Hindustan Construction Company (HCC). Investors with a four-five year perspective can consider investing in the stock. At the current market price, the stock trades at 11 times the company's estimated per share earnings for FY-10. This valuation is on a par with a number of peers. While the current market price is an attractive entry point, investors can consider adding the stock on dips as the stock market is expected to remain volatile in the near future. Clarity on issues Hindustan C

Hindalco Industries jumped 5.39% to Rs 85 at 10:07 IST on BSE on reports the aluminium-maker's Rs 5,047-crore rights issue managed to sail through due to underwriting by promoters and banks. Meanwhile, the BSE Sensex was up 419.93 points, or 4.02%, to 10,950.81. On BSE, 35,805 shares were traded in the counter. The stock had an average daily volume of 8.75 lakh shares in the past one quarter. The stock hit a high of Rs 86 and low of Rs 82 so far during the day. The stock had touched a 52-week low of Rs 78.40 on 10 October 2008 and 52-week high of Rs 202.74 on 15 November 2007. The mid-cap stock had underperformed the market over the past one month till 10 October 2008, declining 35.22% as compared to the Sensex's decline of 28.20%. It had underperformed the market in the past one quarter, sliding 42.19% as compared to the Sensex's decline of 24.40%. The company's current equity is Rs 175.32 crore. Face value per share is Re 1. The current price of Rs

MUMBAI: Tata Consultancy Service (TCS) on Monday announced that it has signed a deal with Ministry of External Affairs for the "Passport Seva Project" valued at over Rs 1,000 crore. After implementation of the project, the process of issuing a new passport will be completed in 3 days subject to police verification, the company said in a filing to the BSE. Speaking on the occasion, Mr Shivshankar Menon, Foreign Secretary said" "The Passport Seva Project, based on a public-private partnership model, aims to provide passport-related services to Indian citizens in a speedy, convenient and transparent manner. The sovereign and fiduciary function of granting and issuing passport remains with the Ministry and TCS will be our technology and operations partner in this project." Mr S Ramadorai, CEO and Managing Director, TCS said, "We believe that this mission mode project of national importance will make delivery of passport services truly world clas

MUMBAI: With the stock market taking a severe beating, the Price Earning (PE) ratio of 15 out of 30 Sensex shares has dropped to 10 or less as of last Friday, according to the data available. The PE ratio for as many as 11 Sensex shares is in single digits, the data reveals. The PE ratio indicates to what extent market is willing to pay for the company's earnings. PE is typically higher when the market booms and drops when the sentiment turns bearish. High performing companies generally tend to command higher PE ratios. PE ratio also depends upon liquidity available in the market. Among the companies whose PE ratios are less than 10 are ICICI Bank (9.9), SBI (9.8), Reliance Comm (8.6), Satyam Computers (9.1), ACC (7.4), Tata Motors (6), DLF (5.9), Hindalco (4.8), Grasim (4.7), Sterlite (4.4). The lowest PE is that of Tata Steel at only (1.7). Shares with PE ratio of 10 are Reliance Ind (10.9), ONGC (10.5), TCS (10), and Reliance Infra (10.9). The PE for the Sensex o