Rupee ends 5 paise weaker; G-securities recover
Mumbai: The rupee ended the day 5 paise weaker on dollar demand from corporates and cancellations of forwards by exporters. It closed the day at 46.73/74 in its value against dollar. On Thursday, the domestic currency had closed at 46.68/69 in the local currency markets. There was demand for dollars from the oil and manufacturing sectors and also from the Union Government, said a dealer in a State-run bank. Profit booking by exporters also led to the spurt in domestic currency, he added. The rupee opened the day at 46.67/68, which was the intra-day high.
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Power stocks fuse out; mid-caps rally
Mumbai: The market rallied for the third consecutive day owing to the firmness in select stocks. The BSE Sensex closed on Friday at 3354.14 points higher by 16.84 points. The overall market sentiment was mixed. The Sensex opened firm at 3342.65 points and fell to intra-day low of 3338.90 points. The Sensex heavyweights such as Reliance, Ranbaxy and HPCL ended the day in the positive territory. Reliance appreciated by Rs 4.60 to Rs 312.30. However, HLL, which has a 13.56-per cent weightage in the Sensex, closed marginally lower at Rs 170.25. Notable losers were Infosys, SBI and ITC. Losers outnumbered gainers marginally with 899 stocks declining as compared to 887 stocks that were appreciating. The broad S&P CNX Nifty closed on Friday at 1055.75 points, gaining 4.45 points. Among the June futures contracts, counter such as Nifty, SBI, and Reliance were active.

Power-related stocks, which were bullish for quite some time, ended the day in the negative territory. BSES lost 2.8 per cent to Rs 263, Surat Electricity declined 7.2 per cent to Rs 107.50, Alstom shed 8.3 per cent to Rs 37.25, Alstom Power was down by 8.6 per cent to Rs 97.50 and Tata Power finished marginally lower at Rs 140.80. Engineering stocks such as Thermax, BHEL, Bharat Electricals and Siemens gained. Thermax gained 4.60 per cent to Rs 223.05; Siemens appreciated 2.66 per cent to Rs 380.25 and BHEL edged up 1.20 per cent to Rs 307.10. However, ABB declined 3.49 per cent to Rs 365.05.
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Tata Mutual working on Fund of Funds
Kolkata: Tata Mutual Fund could be the first asset management company in India to start a Fund of Funds, a concept that has been recently blessed by the securities regulator. The AMC, a 50:50 joint venture with TD Waterhouse, is working on FoF even while it waits for an official notification from SEBI. The regulator is expected to come up with a formal notification in the near future. Tata MF, according to its CEO, Ved Prakash Chaturvedi, hopes to draw from the experience gathered by TD in other markets. "Our overseas partner has critical international experience when it comes to FoFs,'' he noted, adding that such funds may well find a niche for themselves in India. FoFs, as the name suggests, are mutual funds whose portfolios consist of other funds. These are expected to produce new opportunities for Indian MFs in terms of reaching out to more investors. An FoF inter alia enables an investor to diversify and spread his or her allocation over a number of schemes.
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Ranbaxy Labs: Outlook positive, buy July calls
Mumbai: The outlook on the Ranbaxy stock appears positive. The upside price target is Rs 750. Profit-taking may, however, push the stock down to Rs 695. Consider buying the July calls. Note that the July contracts are not currently traded. You can buy the July 720 calls for Rs 27 per option. Any price above that level will lower your payoffs. Note that the futures contracts carry more liquidity than the calls and puts on this stock. This means that the option sellers may demand higher premium to write calls. Your implied volatility may, therefore, be higher than 24 per cent, which has been used to value the July 720 calls. If the stock moves to Rs 750, the July 720 calls will generate 50 per cent returns. If the stock declines to Rs 695, the position will lose 65 per cent.
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Rain Calcining jumps on funds' support
Mumbai: The stock price of Rain Calcining Ltd, calcined petroleum coke and power producer, has doubled in the last one and half month on active purchases from mutual funds and FIIs. The active purchases from institutional investors are mainly due to the company wiping out its entire accumulated losses of Rs 36.33 crore. For the financial year ended March 2003, the company net profit more than doubled to Rs 37.68 crore from Rs 15.71 crore in previous financial year. The turnover of the company increased from Rs 292.87 crore to Rs 333.22 crore. Since the beginning of May, the stock price of the company has jumped from Rs 10.2 to Friday's closing price of Rs 20.58 on BSE, a gain of 100 per cent. The volume in the counter has also increased. In Friday's trading the stock price gained 6.63 per cent at Rs 20.58 with volume of 6.58 lakh shares on BSE and on NSE the stock gained 7.29 per cent at Rs 20.65 with volume of 13.73 lakh shares.
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Hikal gains on USFDA hopes
Mumbai: Agro-chemicals company Hikal Ltd has been accumulated by several institutional investors over the last few days. Dealers said domestic institutions are buying the stock on hopes that the company will get the USFDA approval for its pharma plant. The company recently entered into the pharmaceutical business. The talk is that the stock would be re-rated once it gets the USFDA approval. On the back of this expectation, select funds have already bought the shares and some more buying order is yet to be executed, dealers said. On Friday, the stock of Hikal gained 4.98 per cent at Rs 191.85 on the BSE with volumes of 13,206 shares. On the NSE, the stock gained 10.01 per cent at Rs 200.60 with volumes of 32,550 shares.
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FISE may submit `Indonext' plan to SEBI today
New Delhi: The members of the Federation of Indian Stock Exchanges are likely to submit a proposal for formation of `Indonext' exchange during their meeting with senior officials of the Securities and Exchange Board of India in Mumbai on Saturday. Sources pointed out that SEBI had promised to give due consideration for any consolidation proposal emanating from the regional bourses, especially in the wake of new scenario where major share of the securities market transactions are carried out through the two large bourses — The Stock Exchange, Mumbai and the National Stock Exchange
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Maruti issue oversubscribed 2.7 times on day 2
New Delhi: The Government's offer for sale of 25 per cent stake in India's largest automobile company, Maruti Udyog Ltd, has met with an overwhelming response at the end of the second running day of the issue, which closes on June 19. The issue, which opened on Thursday, was oversubscribed 2.7 times as on Friday evening. The total number of bids received were 19.67 crore shares as compared to the offer size of 7.22 crore shares, as per the demand figure published in the Web site of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE). Agency reports have quoted merchant banking officials confirming that the total number of bids received during the first two days of the public offer was for 19.67 crore shares both from BSE and NSE.
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