INVESTMENT WORLD
OPEN OFFERS
Indal: Smelt the metal
SHAREHOLDERS of Indal may tender to the open offer being made by Hindalco Industries to acquire a 25.5 per cent equity stake in Indian Aluminium Company (Indal) at an offer price of Rs 120 per share. Renukeshwar Investments and Finance is acting ...
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INDUSTRY ANALYSIS
Construction: Much to build on
CONSTRUCTION stocks have been scaling new highs since the last year or so. This could be attributed to, among other things, the Government's renewed thrust on infrastructure spend, the Golden Quadrilateral road project involving a proposed Rs ...
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Shaky structure abroad
INDIAN construction companies have primarily been catering to the domestic market. According to a CIDC (Construction Industry Development Council) report, India's share in the global trade of construction, architectural and engineering services ...
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Laying the finance foundation
THE burgeoning gap between the required and the available capital for financing infrastructure and housing in the country has prompted the Government to look at various options for raising capital and attracting investments in these sectors. ...
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Building blocks of the world
THE money expended world over on the construction industry, the oldest service industry, amounts to a whopping $3.5 trillion. The expenditure by each country and the employment this industry generates are quite large. A look at the leading ...
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MUTUAL FUNDS
Templeton India Growth Fund: Invest
ACTIVELY managed equity funds outperformed the narrow market indices such as the BSE Sensex and the S&P CNX Nifty by a substantial margin over the past four years. The recent fall in equity values may, thus, be used by investors to take ...
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Product differentiation: Greater clarity needed
MVC-Bond Option: Hold
Bond Fund: Switch
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Short-term flows dominate in September
MUTUAL funds — especially private sector funds — rely heavily on products targeted at corporate and high net-worth individuals. In September, the fund inflows and outflows in this category were heavy. The Unit Trust of India (UTI) ...
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Zurich High Interest Fund: Hold
THE Zurich High Interest Fund (Growth) returned 14.5 per cent since last October. The portfolio risk has been somewhat high compared to the returns. Unit-holders can stay invested, while new investors can wait for a shift in portfolio allocation ...
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Birla Advantage: Hold/Avoid fresh exposures
INVESTMENTS need not be contemplated in Birla Advantage Fund. Its performance in the last 12 months has been unimpressive, especially compared to its performance till 1999. The last three months' performance, too, falls far short of a large ...
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Acquisitions need more regulation
THESE are challenging times for most asset management companies. Most are yet to make a decent return on their invested capital in spite of years of being around in the country. This is driving consolidation in the industry. Schemes are acquired ...
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STOCKS
Zee Telefilms: Move out of the show
EXISTING shareholders of Zee Telefilms (a stock for those with high risk appetite) can contemplate paring down exposures in the stock at current price levels as well as on any upticks. Growth in subscription revenues in recent quarters has in ...
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Clariant India: Hold/Buy on declines
SHAREHOLDERS of Clariant India can continue to hold on to the stock at the current levels of Rs 125. The stock has been range-bound and trading in the Rs 125 to Rs 135 band for the past few weeks. Based on the annualised per share earnings for ...
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Glenmark Pharma: Hold
AN investment in a company before it really blooms is a sure way to benefit in the equity market. At present, the pharmaceutical industry has been presented with huge opportunities, and the companies that make the most of them are likely to grow ...
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TVS Motor Company: Hold/Buy on declines
TWO-WHEELER major, TVS Motor Company, has reported a sharp increase in turnover and post-tax earnings for the first half ended September 2002. The turnover rose 59 per cent to Rs 1341 crore and the post-tax earnings saw a near three-fold rise to ...
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HLL: Buy
THE Hindustan Lever stock plunged to its four- year low soon after the unveiling of the company's financials for the quarter ended September 2002. The adverse reaction to HLL's September 2002 financials is probably founded on the two unpleasant ...
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Satyam Computers: Hold
SATYAM Computers' earnings performance for 2002-03 second quarter has turned out to be on expected lines. While the second quarter performance was relatively healthy, the company revised its per share earnings guidance downwards for 2002-03 by ...
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LIFE INSURANCE
Market-linked insurance plans — Have your cake and eat it too
A friend is in a dilemma. He is to get married shortly, and is grappling with the problem of where to direct his future savings. Should he stick to risky investments as he has a long career ahead, or should he create a financial cushion to help ...
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Lower premium rates
ECONOMICS
What is rationality?
IN normal conversation, we say a person is rational when he or she has acted reasonably. That is, we are able to attribute some logical reasoning to the person's behaviour. Economists, however, give a different meaning to this ...
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DERIVATIVES MARKETS
Tech stocks dominate
EQUITIES weakened during the week on the heels of significant selling in the spot market. The negative sentiment among market participants showed up in the sharp decline in market indices during the course of the preceding week. The BSE Sensex ...
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Covered call, put
INVESTORS are familiar with covered call where the investor, while writing a call options, simultaneously buys the stock or goes long in the futures market. The advantage of such a strategy is that the risk of writing a call option, which is ...
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Options guide
Futures guide
RBI & OTHER CENTRAL BANKS
Beware of e-Gold
CORPORATE BONDS
REC infrastructure bonds: No shocks
RURAL Electrification Corporation (REC) has come out with an issue of tax-saving infrastructure bonds, which is on tap (available anytime across the counter). Investors seeking to utilise the additional Rs 30,000 qualifying limit for ...
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CREDIT CARDS & DEBIT CARDS
Drivesmart from ICICI Bank
Debit card from IDBI Bank
FIXED DEPOSITS
Kotak Mahindra Finance: Money in bank
THE one-year fixed deposit programme of Kotak Mahindra Finance could be a good option for investors with a low-to-medium risk profile. Kotak Mahindra Finance's fixed deposit programme is open for investment. The company offers various plans. ...
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INTERVIEW
`Outsourcing, right mix for offshore deals' — Mr Gerhard Watzinger, CEO, Mascot Systems
MASCOT Systems, the subsidiary of the iGate group, is laying the platform for consolidation in the software services arena under the stewardship of its Chief Executive Officer, Mr Gerhard Watzinger. Pitching strongly for offshore as a ...
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COMMENTARY
Encouraging trend in ITC, Grasim
THE BSE Sensex touched a new 52-week low, closing below the 2900-mark this week. The bearishness which engulfed the stock markets was attributable mainly to selling pressure in heavyweights, with FII's remaining net sellers through the week and ...
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ONGC may seek lower levels
THE market turned distinctly bearish during the week gone by. Even the firm trend at the American bourses failed to cheer domestic market sentiment. Concerns on corporate performance coupled with disappointing results from a few companies ...
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Sustained weakness in HLL
NIFTY (932.2): The failure to move past 984 and the subsequent drop below the support level of 965 has effectively negated the earlier positive outlook. As observed last week, the break below 965 triggered a sharp slide in the index. The ...
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MTNL down 10.8%
Dr. Reddy's Laboratories: The stock price of Pharma major, Dr. Reddy's Labs went down by 7.7 per cent to end at Rs 688 during the week. This has to be viewed in the backdrop of poor quarterly results registered by the company for the ...
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Nasdaq: Buoyant mood
EXCEPT for the drop on Thursday, the market sentiment at the American bourses remained buoyant during the week gone by. The benchmark indices recorded third straight week of gain. Over two-thirds of the companies constituting the S&P 500 have ...
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INCOME TAX
NRI investments & provident fund: Dealing with NRI investments
MY brother is an NRI working in the US for the last eight years. While working in India he invested in equity shares. The dividend from these companies is credited to a joint account that he maintains with my father. What is the tax implication ...
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IPOS
Allahabad Bank: Unattractive
INVESTMENTS in Allahabad Bank's initial public offer can be avoided. The bank's capital adequacy is sensitive to fluctuating profit growth. One year of decline in profits can set back the bank significantly. Allahabad Bank is raising Rs 100 ...
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INSIGHT
Decade of SEBI regulations — When will they start biting?
IT IS ten years since the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) started to put in place the regulatory framework for the capital market. And investors have certainly benefited from the availability of more information and a contemporary ...
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Secondary market — Sound structure, weak surveillance
PERHAPS the most significant change in the market in the last decade is the complete transformation of the trading, clearing and settlement infrastructure. From a market burdened with heavy problems of paper and an opaque trading structure (where ...
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Mutual funds: Expanding assets, shrinking options
THE mutual fund industry may be much larger than it was 12 months back. But this growth has not been accompanied by enlargement of choice for investors, especially when it comes to equity and balanced funds. Compared to September 2001, the asset ...
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Driven by domestic sales
THE automotive sector must be breathing easy after seeing September sales. Following the negative growth trends witnessed for most of the last six months, sales during September rose to offset the fall during the previous months. A general ...
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CARTOON
It Adds Up!
"I took full advantage of the tech boom. Stayed away from the market and stuck to selling pirated software."
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