Sensex sees all-time closing high; L&T soars 3%, autos weak

The 30-share BSE Sensex saw record closing high on Thursday supported by capital goods and financials stocks. The gradual rise in equity benchmarks for the fourth consecutive session with some caution is may be in anticipation of no hike in policy rates by RBI in the forthcoming monetary policy due on January 28. The index rose 35.99 points to 21,373.66. The 50-share NSE Nifty closed at new 2014 high of 6,345.65, up 6.70 points over previous day's value. However, the broader markets underperformed. Declining shares outnumbered advancing ones by a ratio of 1439 to 1238 on the BSE. Experts believe the market may see gradual upmove after the consolidation for the last three months and may touch 6700-6800 levels on the Nifty in next two-three months or before general elections.

03:50 pm FII view: India is all set to see growth bottoming out in the second quarter of fiscal year 2014, thus sealing its position on 'high conviction' list of economies. This sentiment was shared by Jim Walker, a Hong Kong-based independent economist and founder and managing director of Asianomics. His faith in Indian economy going forward is based on his conviction in corporate performance and not election outcome. Interestingly, Walker is underweight on China and neutral on Japan. In an interview to Latha Venkatesh and Sonia Shenoy  on CNBC-TV18, Walker said oversold rupee, better corporate balance sheets, possible bottoming of growth in 2QFY14, and expectation that new government post elections will be more receptive to policy needs are key reasons why he has elevated India to high-conviction buy list. ''I would go long on India on a global basis'' he said in the interview. The economist said capital goods sector is still visibly weak and advised buying beaten down midcap cyclicals. "Accumulate slowly, there's no need to rush in. This is a start of a five-year cycle for India again, so there is no need for a heavy hand in this year to push prices up, but it is cyclicals that I would be accumulating."

03:40 pm Market closing: The Sensex makes record closing high at 21373.66, up 35.99 points. The Nifty ends up 6.70 points at 6345.65. About 1238 shares have advanced, 1439 shares declined, and 206 shares are unchanged.   After posting strong third quarter results, L&T remained favourite among investors today, gained 3 percent. Axis Bank , GAIL , Sun Pharma and HDFC are other gainers in the Sensex.  Auto stocks succumbed to selling pressure with M&M losing around 3 percent. Other losers are ONGC , NTPC , Coal India and Hindalco .

03:30 pm Opinion: In an interview to CNBC-TV18 Benoit Anne, managing director, head of EM strategy, Societe Generale said that investors are downbeat on emerging markets (EM) in the near-term given the poor dynamic across asset classes. ''We are very much in risk aversion shock. Chinese data is adding oil to the fire in the near term. So, the high beta currencies in Asia those that tend to respond to shocks, to sentiment understandably so are really trading poorly,'' he added. He recommends investors to be cautions since the global environment continues to be quite challenging.

03:20 pm Market outlook: Rajesh Kothari, Managing Director, Alfaccurate Advisors believes the Nifty is going to be rangebound until there is some certainty on the election outcome. He expects stocks to give 20-25 percent returns. He says this year doesn't belong to taking major calls on the market either on the upside or downside. His top picks are non-banking finance companies and gold finance companies. He believes there is significant upside even from current levels. He is bullish on the pharmaceutical space and select capital goods companies, preferable large cap stocks like L&T.

03:10 pm International results: South Korea's Hyundai Motor posted its first year-on-year fall in quarterly revenue in nearly three years, as the stronger local currency weighed and imported rivals gained ground in the Korean home market. Hyundai posted a revenue of 21.94 trillion Korean won in the October to December period, a 3 percent fall from a year earlier. This marked its first year-on-year sales fall since at least 2011 when new accounting methods were adopted. Its global shipments went up 0.4 percent to 1.23 million vehicles in the fourth quarter. However, its net profit jumped 15 percent to 2.06 trillion won, but missed a consensus forecast of 2.23 trillion. Its profit a year ago was hurt by provisions to cover the cost of compensating customers for overstated fuel-economy claims on some cars sold in the United States and Canada.

02:58pm Morgan Stanley on Q3 earnings
According to Ridham Desai of Morgan Stanley, initial earnings data reveals that Sensex profit growth have beaten Morgan Stanley estimates by 3 percentage point at 19 percent (Y-o-Y). "We have seen margin expansion for the Morgan Stanley coverage universe (ex-energy) at 159 basis points. So far technology is leading the pack with 36 percent (Y-o-Y) growth. Broad market companies (ex-energy) have reported revenues and earnings of 17 percent and 21 percent (Y-o-Y) respectively," he elaborates.

02:50pm Experts on fertiliser industry post subsidy
The government has granted an additional subsidy of Rs 9,000 crore to the fertilizer sector. Speaking on the development Rashtriya Chemical Fertiliser 's ( RCF ) CMD RG Rajan said the decision has come as a relief and will help in bringing down the borrowing costs. The companies are expected to get the additional money by the next week. According to Rajan, the fertiliser companies are witnessing higher interest costs and borrowings. He said there is a need for special allowances to protect the survival of vintage companies. He further added that higher gas prices could be a negative to the extent of excess working capital. Reacting to the development Satish Chander, DG, Fertiliser Association of India, said the Rs 9,000-crore subsidy will only suffice for the on-account payment of the companies up to mid-November and the remaining four-and-a-half months will see dearth of funds. ''If you look at the industry as a whole, we will still be short by Rs 25,000 crore… and this (Rs 9,000-crore aid) is only for on account payment. We still haven't got the balance payments yet, which is pending since 14 months (November 2012). Speaking to CNBC-TV 18's Ekta Batra and Anuj Singhal, Chander said the urea industry is becoming sick with every passing day. ''We need more funds to save and protect the urea industry and the domestic production of urea needs to be protected,'' he said adding that various costs in industry have not been changed for over 10 years. A meeting of group of ministers (GoM) headed by Sharad Pawar on fertiliser sector has been postponed to January 30. GoM meet will consider relief in the form of fixed subsidies and vintage allowances to the fertiliser industry.

02:40pm Biocon talks to CNBC-TV18
Third-quarter net profits for biopharma firm  Biocon stood at Rs 105 crore, up 14 percent from Rs 92 crore in the year-ago quarter. Operating profits for the company went from Rs 142 crore to Rs 168 crore, an 18 percent jump, while sales grew from Rs 635 crore in the December quarter last year to Rs 700 crore in the latest quarter. Revenue was sharply lower than the street's estimates of Rs 759 crore but operating profit surprised positively, thanks to margins expanding from 22.4 percent to 24 percent. The strength witnessed in the margins were mainly due to low spends on research & development (R&D), CMD Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw told CNBC-TV18's Reema Tendulkar. ''The low R&D spend is largely attributable to the clinical trial environment in India,'' she said, referring to a Supreme Court decision that had revoked the health ministry's right to clear trials. ''We have had to either put on hold or defer a large number of India-based clinical trials, some of which we have actually taken offshore. But it is temporary.'' Biocon would like to maintain R&D spend at its usual levels of 6-8 percent of biopharma sales, the CMD said, adding that an expected rise in R&D spend would be offset by changing the product mix and focusing on high-margin products such as insulin. ''The focus is currently on maintaining margins more than expanding the topline,'' she said. ''The huge growth drivers will only come in once our Malaysia facility is full operational and when our abbreviated new drug application (ANDA) vertical is fully operational. We do intend to file our first ANDA later this year.''

02:30pm Indian Bank rallies 3% post earnings
State-run Indian Bank's third quarter year-on-year net profit dropped 20 percent on account of depreciation on its AFS portfolio, lower net interest income and fall in provisions, but the asset quality improved sequentially. Net profit declined to Rs 264.5 crore in the quarter ended December 2013 from Rs 330.58 crore in a year ago period while net interest income slipped 4.75 percent year-on-year to Rs 1,090.6 crore during the same period. Gross non-performing assets (NPAs) fell 34 basis points quarter-on-quarter (up 24 bps year-on-year) to 3.42 percent and net NPAs slipped 31 bps sequentially (up 8 bps Y-o-Y) to 2.25 percent in the quarter gone by.

02:20pm The market gained marginal strength in afternoon trade, heading for positive close for the fourth consecutive session, supported by banks and capital goods. The Sensex rose up 61.17 points to 21,398.84, and the Nifty climbed 15.50 points to 6,354.45. About 1175 shares have advanced, 1349 shares declined, and 228 shares are unchanged. HDFC extended gains to 2 percent while Bharti Airtel , Sun Pharma, GAIL and Axis Bank too rallied 2 percent each. Shares of ITC , Infosys , HDFC Bank , State Bank of India , Hindustan Unileve advanced 0.4-0.8 percent. ITC maintained its strong upmove, rising 3 percent post 11 percent year-on-year growth in Q3 bottomline and 12 percent growth in revenues for the quarter ended December 2013. However, Mahindra and Mahindra plunged 2.6 percent post 18 percent degrowth in profits of its subsidiary Mahindra & Mahindra Financial services. M&M holds 51.2 percent stake in subisidiary M&M Financial Services that lost 6 percent.

2:00 pm Asian Market: The Nikkei stock average reversed early gains to end 0.8 percent lower on Thursday after a survey showed manufacturing activity in China, one of Japan's top trading partners, contracted in January for the first time in six months. The Nikkei ended 125.07 points lower at 15,695.89, breaking below its five-day moving average of 15,737.79. Before the release of the disappointing flash Markit/HSBC Purchasing Managers' Index survey, the benchmark had risen as high as 15,958.58 to a two-week peak and near the 16,000-mark it had crossed last month for the first time in six years.

"They are in the middle of a reform right now to fix shadow banking ... to open markets to the private sector," said Kyoya Okazawa, head of global equities and commodity derivatives at BNP Paribas in Tokyo. "In the middle of those reforms, those PMI numbers are going to be quite bumpy."

1:50 pm Results: Amara Raja Batteries reported a 17.4 percent year-on-year growth in its bottomline on account of strong operational performance , but higher raw material cost and tax expenses limited the growth. Net profit increased to Rs 95 crore in the quarter ended December 2013 from Rs 80.9 crore in a year ago period while total income from operations grew 13.44 percent to Rs 863 crore in the quarter gone by. On the operational front, earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) rose 23 percent to Rs 150 crore and operating profit margin expanded 140 basis points to 17.4 percent compared to a year ago period.

1:40 pm Interview: Raymond expects to sustain operating margins at current levels, chief financial officer M Shivkumar said. The company's third quarter net profit surged more than fourfold to Rs 56.9 crore, driven by strong realizations in its textiles business, which accounts for over 50 percent of total revenues. The growth in bottomline was strong even after adjusting for the huge VRS expense in the year-ago quarter. The company's consolidated margins grew 250 basis points to 12.1 percent during the quarter, as each of the company's divisions- textile apparels, denim, garments, shirts, tools and hardware, auto components - turned in a decent performance.

1:30 pm Exclusive: The stake sale of Specified Undertaking of UTI (SUUTI) in Axis Bank , which is part of the government's disinvestment process, is likely to take place through block trade, sources tell CNBC-TV18. Sale of 10 percent government stake in Indian Oil Corporation to ONGC and Oil India may also be done via block deal. The government has budgeted Rs 14,000 crore by way of residual stake sale in companies in which it does not hold a majority stake. SUUTI has appointed three merchant bankers JP Morgan, Citigroup Global Markets and JM Financial Consultants for sale of its stake in Axis Bank.

The market is trading within a narrow range. The Sensex is up 14.21 points at 21351.88, and the Nifty is up 0.45 points at 6339.40. About 1124 shares have advanced, 1258 shares declined, and 218 shares are unchanged. L&T, GAIL , BHEL , Axis Bank and Sun Pharma are top gainers in the Sensex. Among the laggards are M&M, ONGC, NTPC , Bajaj Auto and TCS . Shares of Mastek  jumped up 9 percent intraday. The company reported a net profit of Rs 18.3 crore for third quarter, up 21.2 per cent, as compared to a net profit of Rs 15.1 crore in the previous quarter. Its income from operations increased to Rs 240.2 crore, up 1.5 percent, against Rs 236.7 crore, a quarter ago. Margins for the quarter moved higher to 14 percent. Cairn India will be posting third quarter earnings today. Revenue is seen up over 7 percent at Rs 5,000 crore. Profit is likely to decline on reversal of mark to market forex gains. Rajasthan production seen up 5 percent quarter-on-quarter. The company will start its Rs 5,725 crore share buyback from today.

12:59pm Bharti Infratel reported strong Q3 numbers
Telecom tower infrastructure services provider Bharti Infratel reported strong numbers in the third quarter (October-December) with the consolidated net profit growing 48 percent sequentially to Rs 410.5 crore. Year-on-year growth was 61.5 percent. The growth in profitability was largely led by fall in total expenses, finance cost and other income though there was a rise in tax expenses for the quarter. Consolidated income from operations grew 1.8 percent quarter-on-quarter (4 percent year-on-year) to Rs 2,731.1 crore in the quarter ended December 2013. "The regulatory environment in telecom sector is improving and more clarity will emerge after the auctions on February 3, 2014," Akhil Gupta, vice chairman and managing director said. With price hikes and the data revenues witnessing strong growth, the operators have started focusing on roll out of 3G networks quarters, he added. Bharti Infratel believes that faster rollouts of 3G and 4G networks post successful spectrum auctions will be the key in the coming year.

12:49pm Government to sell stake in Axis Bank via block deal
The stake sale of Specified Undertaking of UTI (SUUTI) in Axis Bank, which is part of the government's disinvestment process, is likely to take place through block trade, sources tell CNBC-TV18. Sale of 10 percent government stake in Indian Oil Corporation to ONG and Oil India may also be done via block deal. The government has budgeted Rs 14,000 crore by way of residual stake sale in companies in which it does not hold a majority stake. SUUTI has appointed three merchant bankers JP Morgan, Citigroup Global Markets and JM Financial Consultants for sale of its stake in Axis Bank. Meanwhile, the Cabinet Committee of Economic Affairs (CCEA) has approved selling government's stake in Hindustan Zinc and Balco as well, valuation of which may be done by either the mines ministry or the department of divestment.

12:39pm FII View India is all set to see growth bottoming out in the second quarter of fiscal year 2014, thus sealing its position on 'high conviction' list of investors. This sentiment was shared by Jim Walker, a Hong Kong-based independent economist and founder and managing director of Asianomics. In an interview on CNBC-TV18, Walker candidly said oversold rupee, better corporate balance sheets, possible bottoming of growth in 2QFY14, and expectation that new government post elections will be more receptive to policy needs are key reasons why he has elevated India to high-conviction buy list. ''I would go long on India on a global basis'' he said in the interview. The economist said capital goods sector is still visibly weak and advised buying beaten down midcap cyclicals. "Accumulate slowly, there's no need to rush in. This is a start of a five-year cycle for India again, so there is no need for a heavy hand in this year to push prices up, but it is cyclicals that I would be accumulating." Walker has been an unabashed admirer of India's central bank and its policies. However, he has not taken kindly to the recent Urjit Patel recommendations that suggest a total monetary policy overhaul and basing it decisions on retail inflation. He called it a fad that originated in the US couple of years back and was responsible for complacency and slowdown.

12:29pm Raymond talks to CNBC-TV18 post Q3 earnings
Raymond expects to sustain operating margins at current levels, chief financial officer M Shivkumar said in an interview to CNBC-TV18's Latha Venkatesh. The company's third quarter net profit surged more than fourfold to Rs 56.9 crore, driven by strong realizations in its textiles business, which accounts for over 50 percent of total revenues. The growth in bottomline was strong even after adjusting for the huge VRS expense in the year-ago quarter. The company's consolidated margins grew 250 basis points to 12.1 percent during the quarter, as each of the company's divisions-textile apparels, denim, garments, shirts, tools and hardware, auto components-turned in a decent performance. "The story has been the revival of apparel and we are able to consistently hold on to even the second quarter numbers to a large extent,'' Shivkumar said, adding ''the secondary sales growth is happening like-to-like both across exclusive brand outlets (EBOs) and Large Format Shops (LFSs) and B2B segment is doing very well, our exports are doing well and the FMCG business continues to do well." But he sounded caution on the fourth quarter number while saying that it still would be better on a year-on-year comparison. "December month for most of the people I believe has been a very difficult period as you could observe from LFSs have introduced end of season sale much earlier than they would normally do. So I would maintain some caution going forward in Q4 against the background of the current situation," he said. Shivkumar said the company was evaluating options to monetize the Thane land.

12:16pm The market is completely listless in noon trade due to lack of trigger. Current earnings season for the quarter ended December 2013 have not shown any trigger, hence the market is eyeing the next trigger i.e. RBI monetary policy on January 28. The Sensex declined 20.11 points to 21,317.56, and the Nifty fell 8.25 points to 6,330.70. About 1063 shares have advanced, 1198 shares declined, and 208 shares are unchanged. Larsen and Toubro , Radico Khaitan , M&M Financial, Just Dial, Grasim , Infosys , Axis Bank and HDFC are most active shares on exchanges. Capital goods majors Larsen and Toubro, and BHEL gained more than 2 percent post announcement of December quarter earnings by the former. L&T reported 11 percent growth in profit after tax and 12 percent in revenues, but said the order inflow growth for FY14 may be 15 percent as against 20 percent projected earlier. GAIL , Sun Pharma and Bharti Airtel are other gainers with 1-2 percent upmove whereas HCL Technologies , M&M, ONGC , Tata Steel , Wipro and Bajaj Auto declined between 1-3 percent. Amara Raja Batteries gained 6 percent as its Q3 net profit jumped to Rs 95 crore from Rs 80.9 crore year-on-year.

12:00 pm Stock in news: Sasken Communication Technologies stock plunged nearly 14 percent intraday on Thursday on account of ex- dividend today. It means the stock has been adjusted for its special dividend. "In celebration of its 25th year since incorporation, the board of directors on January 20 declared a special dividend of Rs 22.50 per share," the company said in its filing. This is in addition to the special dividend of Rs 2.50 per share declared in October 2013 and annual dividend of Rs 7 per share. Hence, the total special dividend for the current financial year 2013-14 comes to Rs 32 per share.

11:50 am Results: Telecom tower infrastructure services provider Bharti Infratel reported strong numbers in the third quarter (October-December) with the consolidated net profit growing 48 percent sequentially to Rs 410.5 crore. Year-on-year growth was 61.5 percent. The growth in profitability was largely led by fall in total expenses, finance cost and other income though there was a rise in tax expenses for the quarter. Consolidated income from operations grew 1.8 percent quarter-on-quarter (4 percent year-on-year) to Rs 2,731.1 crore in the quarter ended December 2013. "The regulatory environment in telecom sector is improving and more clarity will emerge after the auctions on February 3, 2014," Akhil Gupta, vice chairman and managing director said.

11:40 am Outlook: India is all set to see growth bottoming out in the second quarter of fiscal year 2014, thus sealing its position on 'high conviction' list of investors. In an interview on CNBC-TV18, Jim Walker, founder and managing director of Asianomics candidly said oversold rupee, better corporate balance sheets, possible bottoming of growth in Q2FY14, and expectation that new government post elections will be more receptive to policy needs are key reasons why he has elevated India to high conviction buy list. The economist said capital goods sector is still visibly weak and advised buying beaten down midcap cyclicals.

11:30 am Poll: The Reserve Bank of India will likely hold interest rates steady when it meets next week thanks to easing inflation and as it waits for more data, according to a Reuters poll of economists, who also predict better economic growth in the next fiscal year. Since being appointed governor in September, Raghuram Rajan had embarked on a series of rate hikes to tame soaring prices -- cementing the central bank's hawkish stance. But with softening food prices driving inflation lower recently, the RBI surprised markets in December by keeping rates unchanged. The central bank will announce its policy decision on January 28.

It is another day of flat trading as the Nifty is holding 6300. The Sensex is up 2.22 points at 21339.89, and the Nifty is down 1.90 points at 6337.05.  About 1033 shares have advanced, 940 shares declined, and 211 shares are unchanged. L&T, Sun Pharma , GAIL , Bharti Airtel and BHEL are top gainer while M&M, Wipro , ONGC , Bajaj Auto and TCS are major losers in the Sensex. Rupee is trading near two-week lows tracking weakness in Asian currencies and dollar purchases by a large state-owned bank. Bonds are steady today. Prices likely to remain supported in the absence of any negative cues on interest rates, expectation of RBI keeping the repo rate unchanged at policy review on January 28. The pound surges to its highest level since 2009 while euro traded steady against the dollar ahead of the Eurozone PMI. Gold slips 0.4 percent but crude rises. Nymex rallies to 3-week highs and Brent is at USD108 per barrel. Asia is mostly lower reacting to the Chinese manufacturing data that fell to a 6-month low. The HSBC's flash PMI fell to 49.6 vs 50.5 the previous month.

10:54am Uday Kotak talks to CNBC-TV18
Uday Kotak, Vice Chairman and MD, Kotak Mahindra Bank believes that in tune with the global economy, Indian economy is also on the path to a recovery. Talking to CNBC-TV18's Menaka Doshi, Kotak said that with reforms like regular diesel price hike, fiscal deficit was not much of a worry. Meanwhile, according to Menaka, the few business leaders that she interacted with on Tuesday have not sounded very positive on India. They are hopeful but not positive as yet. We have an interesting situation with the Indian delegation that is visiting here, she said. It is fairly top heavy when it comes to the government delegation. So, we have five or six cabinet ministers attending this year's WEF annual meeting which is surprising for a government that is just about to go to elections. On the business front, she said there are several familiar faces in Davos that are missing. We don't have Anand Mahindra, YC Deveshwar and Mukesh Ambani. Sajjan Jindal too dropped out but we do have one Davos veteran  Uday Kotak who has been at Davos for many years.

10:44am Cairn India to announce earnings today, stock up 1%
According to CNBC-TV18 poll, analysts on an average expect net profit of the Vedanta Resources subsidiary to fall 9 percent on sequential basis. They do not expect any mark-to-mark foreign exchange gain in the quarter gone by as the rupee was stable. It had reported forex gain of Rs 430 crore in September ended quarter. Revenue is seen going up by 7.5 percent to Rs 5,000 crore and earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation may grow 2.8 percent to Rs 3,630 crore compared to previous quarter.

10:34am KPIT Technologies plunges 12%
KPIT reported poor set of numbers in the quarter ended December 2013. Profit after tax fell 8.8 percent quarter-on-quarter to Rs 60.77 crore while revenues slipped 3.5 percent to Rs 677.9 crore and dollar revenues declined 2.3 percent to USD 109.6 million.

10:24am Sasken Communication goes ex-dividend
Sasken Communication Technologies  stock plunged nearly 14 percent intraday on Thursday on account of ex-dividend today. It means the stock has been adjusted for its special dividend. "In celebration of its 25th year since incorporation, the board of directors on January 20 declared a special dividend of Rs 22.50 per share," the company said in its filing. This is in addition to the special dividend of Rs 2.50 per share declared in October 2013 and annual dividend of Rs 7 per share. Hence, the total special dividend for the current financial year 2013-14 comes to Rs 32 per share. The company has fixed January 25 as record date for payment of special dividend that will be paid on and from January 31, 2014.

10:14am Mahindra and Mahindra Financial falls 3% post earnings
Mahindra and Mahindra Financial Services reported poor set of earnings in the quarter ended December 2013. Standalone profit after tax of the non-banking finance company fell 18 percent year-on-year to Rs 164 crore dented by higher provisions indicating stress on asset quality. However, net interest income grew 21 percent, lower-than-expected, to Rs 677 crore from Rs 561 crore during the same period. According to CNBC-TV18 poll, analysts had expected net profit of Rs 240 crore and net interest income of Rs 712 crore for the quarter. Loan provisions and write-offs increased 121 percent on yearly basis (43 percent sequentially) to Rs 180 crore during October-December quarter.

10:04am The market remains directionless as it is eagarly waiting for RBI monetary policy due next week. The Sensex rose 8.61 points to 21,346.28 while the Nifty fell 0.95 points to 6,338. About 810 shares have advanced, 637 shares declined, and 163 shares are unchanged. Gautam Shah of JM Financial feels the trend continues to be in favour of the bulls, but one will have to wait for price action confirmation above 6350-6400, he adds. "The technical patterns formed in the last few days suggest that the index could be in for a major move that could finally break the shackles. Support remains around the 6220 level for the short-term. The set-up tilts in favours of the bears only on a close below the same," Shah says. Sun Pharma gained 2 percent, in addition to 3 percent upmove seen in earlier session and Bharti Airtel too added 1 percent gains on top of 1.6 percent rally in previous session. Sources said the company may split Africa tower business sale. Larsen and Toubro , the country's largest engineering and construction company, gained more than 3 percent as it reported 11 percent growth in net profit and 12 percent in revenues for the quarter ended December 2013 year-on-year. However, the management said order inflow may grow 15 percent in FY14 as against 20 percent earlier.

9:50 am Exclusive interview: The country's largest auto maker Tata Motors is lining up over 30 new commercial vehicle launches in the next two months apart from simultaneously de-risking its business model by increasing its share of exports as the domestic slowdown intensifies. In an exclusive interview with CNBC TV18's Ronojoy managing, director Karl Slym said that the company was also working towards bringing down its standalone debt levels which stood at Rs 19,000 crore at the end of last quarter. "There is are nothing new – I am not going to come up with a new idea of how you end up restructuring the company. We know that our company has grown. It has grown in individual packages across the country. Therefore, now we have done a lot of consolidation to make sure that we operate as one company,'' Slym said. He added that consolidated operations will enhance efficiency.

9:40 am  Market oulook: Gautam Shah of JM Financial believes that trend continues to be in favour of the bulls but one will have to wait for price action confirmation above 6350-6400. "The technical patterns formed in the last few days suggest that the index could be in for a major move that could finally break the shackles. Support remains around the 6220 level for the short-term. The set-up tilts in favours of the bears only on a close below the same," he said.  Ridham Desai of Morgan Stanley feels that initial earnings data reveals that Sensex profit growth have beaten Morgan Stanley estimates by 3 percentage point at 19 percent (Y-o-Y). "We have seen margin expansion for the Morgan Stanley coverage universe (ex-energy) at 159 basis points. So far technology is leading the pack with 36 percent (Y-o-Y) growth. Broad market companies (ex-energy) have reported revenues and earnings of 17 percent and 21 percent (Y-o-Y) respectively," he elaborated.

9:30 am Buzzer: Shares of L&T jumped over 3 percent on December quarter results announced late evening Wednesday. The country's largest engineering and construction company's third quarter (October-December) net profit grew 10.6 percent year-on-year to Rs 1,241 crore compared to a year ago period. After considering the exceptional gain on dilution of part stake in a subsidiary company (hydrocarbon), (adjusted) profit after tax soared over 22 percent during the quarter. Post demerger, L&T transferred hydrocarbon business to its subsidiary L&T Hydrocarbon Engineering with effect from April 1, 2013.

The market has opened on a flat note once again. The Sensex is down 11.84 points at 21325.83, and the Nifty is down 5.45 points at 6333.50. About 176 shares have advanced, 155 shares declined, and 100 shares are unchanged. L&T,  Infosys , Cipla , Sun Pharma and BHEL are top gainers in the Sensex. Among the losers are Reliance , ONGC , SBI , Coal India and Maruti Suzuki. The rupee declined in the opening trade. It fell 13 paise to 61.94 against US dollar versus previous day's closing value of 61.81 per dollar. Himanshu Arora of Religare expects the dollar-rupee to trade lower in today's session amid RBI's statement to bring down India's consumer price index (CPI) to around 4 percent and making CPI, the benchmark."Strong equities may underpin rupee in short-term. Dollar selling by some state-run banks could support rupee. Range for the day is seen between 61.50-62.03/dollar," he adds. The US dollar, has firmed slightly against a basket of major currencies to be near a two-month peak set on Tuesday. The euro eased to USD 1.3547, not far from a two-month trough of USD 1.3508 plumbed on Monday. And the yen has weakened against the dollar. Wall Street ended mix on Wednesday with the Dow down by a quarter percent weighed by weak corporate earnings, though stocks were mostly trading higher. Also weak weekly jobless claims, which is expected to rise to 330,000 and existing home sales that is expected to remain unchanged at 4.9 million annual rate perhaps weighed on sentiments in the US. Asian markets opened weak. Hang Seng plunged 1.20 percent and Seoul Composite was down 0.66 percent. In commodities, crude prices eased after an industry report showed a sharp rise in crude stockpiles in the world's biggest oil consumer the United States. From the precious metals space, gold fell to its lowest level in nearly two weeks on Thursday as investors awaited US data to gauge the strength of the economy, while platinum eased from a 2-1/2 month high ahead of planned strikes at South African mines.