Sensex ends 230 points up, shies away 10k level

Mumbai: Amid volatile trading, the Bombay Stock Exchange benchmark Sensex today closed higher by over 230 points - still below 10,000 points level - on emergence of buying by funds in heavyweight stocks led by Reliance Industries and select power segment stocks.
The Sensex, which commenced the day lower at 9,631.59, shot up in volatile trade to regain 10,065.37 in the mid-session, but ended at 9,964.29 with a gain of 230.07 points.
A firm opening for the European stock markets also helped the upsurge to some extent.
The National Stock Exchange’s 50-share benchmark index Nifty rose by 90.35 points at 2,973.00, after touching the day’s high of 3,010.00, as most of the heavyweight stocks recorded handsome gains.
Reliance Industries, the Sensex-heaviest, surged by Rs46.30 at Rs1,217.85. The scrip rose to Rs1,239 and a low of Rs1,152 during the day.
Oil and gas sector index gained the most by 196.63 at 6,013.57 followed by metal sector index by 158.89 points at 5,152.33.

NTPC replaces Dabur India on Nifty, CNX 100 indices

MUMBAI: State-run power major NTPC Ltd will replace Dabur India in two indices of National Stock Exchange - S&P CNX Nifty Index and CNX 100 index - from September 24.

The index maintenance sub-committee has decided to exclude Dabur from the two indices and inducted NTPC in its place during its periodic review. The changes would become effective from September 24, NSE said in a press release.

Besides, the committee excluded fifteen companies such as Aditya Birla Nuvo, United Spirits, Indiabulls Financial Services, Jindal Steel & Power and Bank of India from the CNX Midcap Index. In their place, 15 other companies such as Essar Steel, Lanco Infratech, Biocon, HT Media, Tata Tea and Yes Bank have been included, the release said.

Further, 10 companies were excluded from the S&P CNX 500 index and in their place 10 other were included namely - Idea Cellular, Sobha Developers, Television Eighteen India and Power Finance Corporation, the release added.

Read more in The Economic Times

RBI mulls currency futures exchange

Foreign institutional investors unlikely to get a look-in.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is exploring a dedicated currency futures exchange, after taking an in-principle decision to launch rupee-denominated futures.

In its meeting with market participants in Juyly, the RBI has also decided to revive interest rate futures which have failed to take off after being introduced in June 2003.

The central bank is not in favour of currency futures being traded on stock or commodity exchanges as they are regulated by the Securities and Exchange Board of India and Forward Markets Commission (FMC), respectively.

This could dilute RBI’s regulatory power on domestic foreign exchange market which, in turn, could have implications on exchange rate management — RBI’s sole prerogative.

Moreover, the discussion also highlighted the legal issues if futures are allowed on commodity exchange as it happens internationally or on stock exchanges like NSE or BSE.

Read more in Business Standard

NSE may reintroduce pre-opening session

The National Stock Exchange (NSE) is considering the reintroduction of the pre-opening session for order matching after rectifying loopholes that had led to its discontinuation earlier.

Pre-opening session has a specified duration and, as the name suggests, takes place before trading for the day commences. A questionnaire sent to the exchange did not elicit any response.

NSE used to have a pre-opening session where weighted average price of bids placed by traders would form the basis for opening prices of those stocks. However, the exchange discontinued the practice, and brokers feel this could have been triggered by the feeling that some players were availing of the facility to manipulate opening prices by making artificially high or low bids.

Read more in The Economic Times

Sensex sheds over 380 points at open

The Bombay Stock Exchange benchmark Sensex tumbled over 380 points on Friday on heavy selling by funds, triggered by weak global markets.

The BSE-30 shares index, which closed 76.98 points up on Thursday, lost 380.13 points at 15,396.18 in the first five minutes of trade.

Similarly, the National Stock Exchange's Nifty toppled 139.20 points at 4,480.60.

The selling was sparked by reports of a major slide in leading global markets. All the index related stocks in Nifty and Sensex were in red.

India gets a new realty index

On Tuesday, Infrastructure Development Finance Co. Ltd (IDFC) and the FTSE Group which is owned by The Financial Times of London and the London Stock Exchange launched an infrastructure index which will keep an eye on the performance of 63 companies.

The index features companies in transportation, infrastructure like roadways, railways and aviation; power generation, communications infrastructure and would also include those involved in water supply as well. Firms have to be listed on either the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) or the National Stock Exchange (NSE).

It is estimated that in the next few years India will invest as much as $320 billion on infrastructure. Rajiv Lall the managing director of IFDC said last afternoon that the 63 companies have grown at an average compounded annual growth (CAG) of 58% as opposed to 25% growth posted by the NSE and BSE.

Corp bonds to trade on bourses from July 1

The much-awaited trading in corporate bonds will start on the National and the Bombay Stock Exchanges from July 1. This is expected to energise the moribund debt market.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) will ask the two stock exchanges to start trading in corporate bonds shortly, sources close to the developments said.

To begin with, trading would be through order matching as recommended by the R H Patil Committee. The committee had suggested various measures to activate the corporate bond market. The anonymous order matching would come into place only at a later stage, when the exchanges were ready, the sources added.

Banks and institutions will be allowed to trade through either the stock exchanges or via the OTC (over-the -counter). If they wanted to go through the stock exchanges, they could conduct the trading through the stock broking members, the sources added.

In order-matching system, the best buy order is matched with the best sell order. Experts said an efficient corporate debt market required a proper order-matching and guaranteed settlement systems.

Earlier this month, the capital market regulator extended the corporate bond reporting platform to the National Stock Exchange (NSE). From January 2, Sebi had asked the players to report the deals in the corporate bond market on the BSE’s reporting platform.

All transactions in corporate bonds of the value of Rs 1 lakh or above are required to be reported to the corporate bond platform. As the platform is purely for reporting purposes, the stock exchanges had no role or liability for settlement of these trades. The intermediaries and contracting parties were asked to settle the trades bilaterally.

The move to allow both the NSE and the BSE to start a trading platform is, however, at variance with the Patil Committee’s recommendation of a unified exchange for the corporate bond market.

The exchanges have also been asked by Sebi to provide details such as the issuer name, maturity date, current coupon, last price and amount traded, yield and weighted average yield.

The number of trades in the corporate bonds that took place today were 12 and the average traded value was Rs 100 crore. Presently, no trading takes place in the bonds’ segment of the BSE.

The Sebi move comes after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s call, during the inauguration of the Sebi headquarters last year, to activate the debt market.

The Prime Minister had said that the debt markets in India have failed to rise to the expectations. There was a need to make efforts to understand why the debt market has not taken off and to take appropriate policy measures to make it deeper, broader and more liquid, he had said.

A deeper and active debt market would help generate the necessary long-term funds required for the infrastructure sector.