Sensex up 55 points, Nifty ends below 8350; Bharti falls 2%

03:30 pm Market closing: The market ended with some smart gains after hitting record highs. The Sensex ended up 55.50 points at 27915.88 and the Nifty was up 16.70 points at 8340.85. About 1633 shares have advanced, 1385 shares declined, and 108 shares were unchanged.

Axis Bank, Sun Pharma, Dr Reddy's Labs, ICICI Bank and SBI were top gainers in the Sensex. Among the losers were Hindalco, Sesa Sterlite, Coal India, Hero MotoCorp and Bharti Airtel

2:50 pm Market check: The market gets back its buying spree in the last few minutes of trading. The Sensex is up 125.23 points at 27985.61 and the Nifty is up 33.85 points at 8358.00. About 1671 shares have advanced, 1256 shares declined, and 113 shares are unchanged.

Axis Bank, Dr Reddy's Labs, SBI, ICICI Bank and Sun Pharma are top gainers in the Sensex. Among the losers are Sesa Sterlite, Coal India, Hindalco, Bharti Airtel and NTPC.

2:30 pm Deal snapped: Telecom major Bharti Airtel has called off its plans to acquire business and assets of Mumbai based Loop Mobile, for about Rs 700 crore, as the Department of Telecom is yet to clear the deal.

"Loop Mobile and Bharti applied to DoT for approval of the business transfer in March 2014. The approval for the transaction is still awaited from the relevant authorities as a result of which Bharti Airtel has withdrawn from the proposed transaction causing huge loss to the company," Loop Mobile spokesperson told PTI.

DoT is yet to give clearance to the deal as it estimates that Loop Mobile and its sister concern Loop Telecom owe about Rs 808 crore in spectrum and other charges to the government. Loop Mobile's permit in Mumbai is expiring on November 29 and the company did not purchase spectrum in February auction which was mandatory for continuing its operations.

The Sensex is off the day's high after scaling the 28,000 mark. The midcap index continues to outperform after hitting a fresh record high in early trade. The Sensex is up 37.26 points at 27897.64 and the Nifty up 10.05 points at 8334.20. About 1600 shares have advanced, 1281 shares declined, and 105 shares are unchanged.

Coal India, Sesa Sterlite, Bharti Airtel, Hindalco and Tata Power are laggards while Sun Pharma, Axis Bank, SBI, Dr Reddy's Labs and ICICI Bank are top gainers in the Sensex.

Committing to more reforms and eliminating corruption, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today said steps taken by the new government were aimed at creating fair and transparent business environment and ending crony capitalism.

The government was also looking at areas like labour reforms, privatisation of some state-owned companies and improvement of land acquisition laws, the Minister said, while adding that the reforms can't be just "one sensational idea".
   
"You can damage the economy by one bad idea.

Retrospective taxation is one bad idea that damaged the economy," Jaitley said while speaking at the India Economic Summit here.

1:50 pm Exclusive: The government is mulling pushing back its plan to pool coal prices as it fears a low turnout for e-auction. It may even tweak the Cabinet note on coal price pooling. Infact, the issue was not taken up by the Cabinet last week.

The coal block e-auction process is likely to begin in December. The government will auction 72 coal blocks. The Supreme Court deallocated 204 coal blocks in December. This in turn impacted 68,650 MW power capacities.

The government may grant linkage to 10,000 MW apart from 78,000 MW FSA.

1:30 pm Boardroom: Pidilite Industries' second quarter consolidated net profit rose 17 percent at Rs 138.9 crore against Rs 118.5 crore in the same quarter last year.

Sandeep Batra, CFO, Pidilite Industries said although the margins in Q2 were impacted by unprecedented rise in prices of key input vinyl acetate monomer (VAM), going forward there is a strong case for expansion in margins in the second half of FY15.

The company had initiated two price hikes to compensate for the sharp rise in VAM costs which were not adequately reflected in Q2 results.He said the standalone business growth was led by growth in consumer and bazaar segment.

Pidilite Industries is the market leader in adhesives and sealants, construction chemicals, hobby colours and polymer emulsions in India.  It owns the famous brand Fevicol.

The market is absolutely flat now. The Sensex is up 19.97 points at 27880.35 and the Nifty is up 7.70 points at 8331.85. About 1569 shares have advanced, 1262 shares declined, and 118 shares are unchanged.

Sun Pharma, Axis Bank, SBI, ICICI Bank and Dr Reddy's Labs are top gainers while Coal India, Sesa Sterlite, Bharti Airtel, Tata Power and Hindalco are laggards in the Sensex.

Japanese stocks rose to new seven-year highs as heavyweight Fast Retailing Co surged on strong monthly sales, while exporters got a boost as the dollar rose against the yen after US mid-term election results have showed Republicans made major gains.

The Nikkei benchmark, which was trading in negative territory earlier in the day, ended 0.4 percent higher to 16.937.32, the highest closing level since October 2007.

In late afternoon trade, the dollar rose to a seven-year high to 114.40 yen after a sweeping victory by Republicans in the United States' mid-term elections raised hopes for an end to political gridlock in Washington, boosting risk sentiment.

12:50 pm Reaction to FM's call for rate cut: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley ''had spoken for the nation'' when he recently called upon the Reserve Bank of India to cut interest rates, Sunil Mittal, chief of India's largest telecom company Bharti Airtel, said.

Jaitley had recently joined growing clamour for a cut interest rates, which have been left high for several years by RBI governor Raghuram Rajan and his predecessor Duvvuri Subbarao in order to combat high inflation. But the policy has taken a toll on consumer demand with GDP growth coming in below 5 percent over the past two years.

Mittal became the latest industrialist to seek an interest rate cut - as inflation (measured by the consumer price index) appears to have finally come within the central bank's target of 8 percent by early 2015; with the latest reading coming in at 6.5 percent. A fall in interest rate would make cost of capital easier for businesses and spur consumers to open up their wallets and spend more.

12:30 pm Buzzing: Shares of Thermax rallied over 8 percent intraday after it announced stellar September quarter earnings. The Pune-based energy solutions provider reported over two-fold jump in its net profit at Rs 86 crore for the quarter ended September 30, 2014. The company had posted a net profit of Rs 30.16 crore in the corresponding quarter of the last financial year.

Total income increased to Rs 1,213.96 crore during the quarter under review from Rs 1,050.81 crore in the same quarter of the last financial year, Thermax said in a statement.

MS Unnikrishnan, managing director of the company is confindent of a double-digit growth of around 10 percent for FY15. "The order intake has also gone up by around 42 percent. For the first time in the history of the company, a quarterly order intake is more from outside India than from India. We have been able to possibly garner more business from outside India knowing fully well things have not happened very well so far but will happen for the future," he said in an interview to CNBC-TV18.

The market is consolidating after touching record high in early morning session. Banks, pharma and realty stocks are lending strength to the benchmark indices while oil & gas and metals are in red.

The Sensex is up 30.95 points at 27891.33, and the Nifty is  up 10.40 points at 8334.55.
About 1513 shares have advanced, 1123 shares declined, and 107 shares are unchanged.

Brent crude losses have extended into the 5th straight session as weak data from China and Saudi Arabia cutting export prices to the US weighs on sentiment.

Gold prices fell by 0.64 percent to Rs 25,797 per 10 grams in futures trading today as
speculators trimmed positions amid a weak global trend. At the Multi Commodity Exchange, gold for delivery in December declined by Rs 166, or 0.64 percent, to Rs 25,797 per 10 grams in a business turnover of 911 lots.

11:50 am FM's views: India is open to privatisation of certain loss-making public sector companies, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said.

"Certainly I would be interested to look at some PSUs (which) could do much better in private hands," Jaitley said during an interaction at the World Economic Forum in New Delhi, referring to public sector undertakings.

Jaitley also said the government will soon unveil reforms for other natural resources sectors along the lines of coal block auctions.

11:30 am Buzzing: Shares of Ipca Labs crashed 15 percent intraday after Credit Suisse downgraded the stock to underperform from neutral. The brokerage has also cut its FY15/16 earnings per share (EPS) by 2/12 percent to factor in US sales recovery delay as it impacts the ability to revive sales by shifting active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) to third party.

According to the Credit Suisse, Form 483 for the Indore SEZ suggests Food and Drug Administration (FDA) observations are critical and could delay recovery of US sales.

''FDA has pointed six observations in Form 483. We consider two of these critical, pertaining to the practice of conducting trial/unofficial samples and overwriting/deleting raw data files. We consider these critical as similar observations resulted in adverse FDA action at Sun's Karkhadi unit and Wockhardt's Waluj unit,'' it said in a report.

The market manages to maintain its uptrend. The Nifty is at 8355.70, up 31 points while the Sensex is 27967. 77, up 104 points.

Bank stocks are up while metals are down. SBI, Sun Pharma, Axis Bank, Bajaj Auto and ICICI Bank are top gainers in the Sensex. Among the losers are Sesa Sterlite, Coal India, M&M, Hindalco and Bharti Airtel.

Brent crude dropped further below USD 83 a barrel, stretching losses into a fifth session, as weak economic data from top energy consumer China stoked worries about demand in a market that is already battling a deepening global supply glut.

Services sector growth in China weakened in October as new business cooled, a private survey showed, coming just days after previous data revealed sluggish factory growth in the world's second largest economy.

10:50 am Boardroom: The stellar Q2 numbers posted by Thermax were mainly due to order intake going up by 42 percent in the quarter said MS Unnikrishnan, managing director. Looking at past trends he is confindent of a double-digit growth of around 10 percent for FY15.

Q2 also saw an improved operational performance and some belt tightening activity, he said.

For the first time the order intake came in more from outside India than domestic. However, he is upbeat on domestic growth going forward too. The current orderbook stands at over Rs 5000 crore and the carry forward orderbook at the group level is at over Rs 6000 crore.

The company is seeing an upsurge in investment activities in Indonesia and African continent, said Unnikrishnan.

10:30 am India calling? International rating agency Moody's says India's Baa3 rating continues to be stable and Atsi Sheth, senior vice-president, believes there is still some time for India's sovereign rating to be upgraded.

Sheth believes some of the measures announced by the Reserve Bank will enhance India's sovereign profile, while adding that she expects the government to meet its fiscal deficit target of 4.1 percent for this year. However, she adds, that the general deficit - Centre and states combine - continues to be at an elevated 7 percent level. Moody's will be watching out for measures that can help reduce this general deficit to around 4-5 percent level. Sheth says other nations with rating higher than Baa have a general deficit closer to the 3-4 percent mark.

The market has made record highs once again. The Sensex has hit the magical 28000 levels, up 142.10 points or 0.5 percent at 28002.48. The Nifty also is at 8351.90, up 27 points. The midcap index also touched a new high above the 10000-level.

About 1364 shares have advanced, 548 shares declined, and 65 shares are unchanged.

Sun Pharma, SBI, Axis Bank, Tata Power and GAIL are top gainers in the Sensex. Among the losers are Coal India, Bharti Airtel, Sesa Sterlite, Hindalco and Tata Steel. Rashtriya Chemicals, ABG Shipyard, Prism Cement, Hexaware Tech and Jyothy Labs are major gainers in the midcap segment.

Japanese stocks stepped back as heavyweight Softbank tumbled after slashing its profit forecast, while the broader market took a breather after outsized gains inspired by a fresh stimulus drive by the Bank of Japan.

The Nikkei benchmark soared 7.5 percent in the last two trading days, sending the index to its highest point since before the collapse of Lehman Brothers. Tuesday also saw the second highest turnover of shares on record, as investors cheered the BOJ's policy announcement on Friday, as well as the Government Pension Investment Fund's decision to increase its allocation of funds to domestic stocks.

9:40 am Market update: NSE rates are updating now. The Nifty is at 8350.50, up 26 points. The Sensex is up 101.89 points at 27962.27. Sun Pharma, Tata Power, BHEL, SBI and ITC are top gainers in the Sensex. Among the losers are Coal India, Tata Steel, Sesa Sterlite, Hero MotoCorp and Hindalco.

9:30 am Buzzing: Shares of Hexaware jumped 8 percent, touching 52-week high at Rs 213 per share intraday . Investors are hurriedly buying shares of the software firm as its third quarter earnings were strong. Hexaware has posted a net profit of Rs 86 crore in the quarter ended September, up 12.3 percent sequentially. In dollar terms, its revenue grew 7.9 percent quarter-on-quarter (up 11.4 percent on yearly basis) to USD 110 million.

The company has said Europe has led the geographic growth while BFSI and Emerging segments led growth among verticals. In rupee terms, the software service firm's Q3 revenue jumped 9.9 percent Q-o-Q (up 8 percent Y-o-Y) to Rs 671 crore.

According to a CNBC-TV18 poll, Q3 net profit was expected at Rs 83 crore on a revenue of Rs 645 crore. Hexaware added 10 new clients added in Q3 2014.

The market has opened on a higher note. The Sensex is up 80.29 points at 27940.67. NSE rates not are updating. About 609 shares have advanced, 144 shares declined, and 37 shares are unchanged.

Tata Power, TCS, Sun Pharma, Sesa Sterlite, ICICI Bank are top gainers in the Sensex. Among the losers are Tata Motors, NTPC, Infosys, HUL and Maruti are among the losers.

The Indian rupee opened marginally lower at 61.35 per dollar on Wednesday against 61.40 on Monday.

The dollar nursed modest losses as investors decided to take some profits on a four-session rally that swept the greenback to multi-year highs against the yen and euro.

Himanshu Arora of Religare said, "USD-INR pair is expected to trade slightly higher today amid strength in dollar against basket of currencies and a fear of increasing risk in the market. Range for the rupee is seen between Rs 61.24-61.65/dollar."

Asian markets were trading lower on Wednesday. Sentiment in Asia was also under further pressure after the European Commission cut its growth forecasts for the euro zone on Tuesday. The body now forecasts growth of just 0.8 percent this year, down from the 1.2 percent forecast in May.

Brent crude prices slipped to USD 82 per barrel, touching its lowest point since October 2010. Top oil exporter Saudi Arabia cut prices to the United States but raised them to Asia and Europe.

From precious metals space, gold snapped its four-session losing streak, boosted by a drop in the dollar index and expectations of Asian physical demand following bullion's tumble to a four-year low.