Special margin on 15 scrips
Mumbai: The Bombay Stock Exchange has imposed a special margin on 15 scrips from 27 April. The scrips which attract 25 per cent special margin
are Alka Spinners, Fast Track Ent, Galaxy Ent Corp, Geogit Security, Gujarat NRE Coke, JK Synthetics, Matrix Lab, Rei Agro, SB&T Intl, Suryadeep Salt, Transgene Bio, Tricom India, Vas Animation, Visisth Traders and Zigma Software.
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RBI directive set to hit bank stocks
Mumbai: Due to a directive by the RBI on Friday on dividend payouts banking stocks are expected to be volatile with strong negative trends when the exchanges open on Tuesday.

The stipulation pertains to banks having net NPAs of less than 3 per cent of their assets to pay dividends without prior RBI permission. Since a large number of banks don't meet this requirement, their shares are expected to be hit badly.

Among the major PSU banks, only Oriental Bank and Corporation Bank have net NPA levels lower than 3 Per cent of assets. Among private sector banks, ICICI Bank had a net NPA of 4.7 percent on December 2003. The RBI on Friday said payment of dividends by banks would now be based on a dividend payout ratio, which has been capped at 33.33 percent of net profits.
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Indian counters close higher
New York: US markets closed in positive territory last week. Nasdaq jumped 2.7 per cent for the week to 2,049.77 while the S&P 500 rose 0.5 per cent to 1,140.60 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average 0.2 per cent to 10,472.84.

The decision of California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS), the biggest US pension fund, to invest in Indian markets among the other emerging markets, fuelled optimism in the domestic market. The 30-share BSE Sensex gained 1.09 per cent
last week and the NSE's Nifty 1.30 per cent.

Most of the Indian ADR counters closed on a strong note; the Bank of New York Indian ADR Index out-performed all the other indices by gaining 2.9 per cent to 480.01 (466.38).

Among the major gainers were Infosys, Wipro, Sify and
Rediff.com. Satyam Computer however closed weak at $20.97 against the previous week's close of $21.56. Rediff.com, scheduled to announce its financial numbers on April 29, also gained at $13.03 ($12.24). ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank finished on a firm note at $31.19 ($30.85) and $17.25 ($16.10) respectively. The stock finished at Rs 319.15 (Rs 287.30). As a result, the premium for the bank's ADR dipped to18.9 per cent from 22.9 per cent the previous weekend.

HDFC Bank announced an impressive financial performance; net profit jumped 31.4 per cent to Rs154.72 crore (Rs 116.62 crore) for the quarter ended March 31, 2004.

MTNL closed higher at $8.63 ($8.27). The company announced (on Saturday) a 67 per cent rise in net profits at Rs 307 crore (Rs 183.6 crore) for the quarter ended March 31, 2004.
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