NTPC has dream debut; has 3rd largest m-cap
New Delhi: National Thermal Power Corporation, which listed on Friday, opened at Rs70 -a 13 per cent premium to its issue price of Rs62, moving to Rs88, a whopping 42 per cent premium to the issue price. But later due to selling pressure, the stock went down and closed at around Rs75.50 on BSE and NSE. On the NSE, the scrip opened at Rs88 and later moved down to trade around Rs75 per share.

The BSE Sensex closed up 58.48 points at 5,891.36 points while the NSE Nifty closed up 17.45 points at 1,852.3 points.

The scrip witnessed heavy trading on the BSE and NSE. At BSE, 4.85 crore shares were traded. The turnover of traded shares stood at Rs349 crore. On the NSE, total traded volume was 23.25 crore shares with a turnover of Rs1,700 crore.

The IPO was oversubscribed by about 12 times the issue size. The foreign institutional investors' (FIIs) portion of the issue was oversubscribed by around 20 times. A senior broker said a substantial portion of the demand on Friday came from the FIIs.

With its listing the power corporation ousted Tata Consultancy Services from the third spot, but has yet to replace the first two positions held by Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) at the first place with an M-cap of Rs1,15,015 crore and private sector giant Reliance Industries with a market cap of Rs75,355 crore at the second place.

NTPC's market cap works out to Rs62,295 crore at a market price of Rs75.55 a share. It has a huge equity capital base of Rs8,245 crore, comprising 824.55 crore shares with a face value of Rs10 each after the initial public offer.

State Bank of India has moved out of top 10 market cap rankings to 11th poistion with a Rs26,210 crore market cap.
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Sensex soars to 7-month high
Mumbai: The Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) Sensex closed at a seven-month high of 5842.54, gaining 87.78 points over the previous say's close. IT scrips got a boost on the prospect of US President George W Bush coming in for a second term. Markets view Bush as someone who favours free trade and not against outsourcing, the tag presidential hopeful, Senator Kerry, was stuck with.

Infosys Technologies scrip was up by 2.7 per cent to close at Rs1,961.65 while the Wipro share was up 2.26 per cent at Rs675. Satyam Computer was the biggest gainer among Sensex stocks, up 4.58 per cent to Rs390.80 at the close.

24 of the 30 scrips in the Sensex basket closed higher and gainers outpaced losers 2:1 on the BSE. Zee Telefilms was up 4.15 per cent to Rs154.50, State Bank of India was up 3.88 per cent to Rs487.65, ICICI Bank gained 3.57 per cent to Rs307.25 and HDFC was up 2.82 per cent to Rs667.45.

As many as 295 scrips hit the upper circuit filter, and of this, 146 belong to the B2 group, 72 to the T (trade-to-trade) group, 51 to the Z group and 26 to the B1 group.

Among sectors, the BSE Bankex was the biggest gainer, up 3.32 per cent, followed by the IT index, up 2.68 per cent. The BSE Teck index gained 2.38 per cent, the consumer durables index was up 1.92 per cent, the metal index gained 1.53 per cent and the BSE health care index was up 1.08 per cent. The BSE auto index was the only loser, down 0.05 per cent.

Cipla was the biggest loser in the Sensex basket, down 0.73 per cent to Rs276.90, followed by Maruti Udyog, down 0.41 per cent to Rs378.20. Gujarat Ambuja Cement fell 0.38 per cent to Rs351.45, Tata Power was down 0.17 per cent to Rs315.45 and Bajaj Auto fell 0.14 per cent to Rs981.90.
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Rupee at a four-month high
Mumbai: The rupee also gained over a quarter per cent to record a new four-and-a-half month closing high on the back of robust foreign fund investments in the stock market.

The Indian currency opened at 45.52/54 but closed at 45.36/37 per dollar, compared with Tuesday's 45.48/4950. This was the highest close since since June 14 when it closed at 45.3400/345.
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Bond prices crash
Mumbai: Bond prices crashed by nearly Rs 2 due to tightening liquidity, rising inflation and apprehensions of a hardening of interest rates in a jittery G-securities market.

Dealers said that the late evening auction for Rs 8,000 crore on Thursday coupled with the hike in oil prices led to the slide in bond prices.

The inflation figure in the year till October 23 came at 7.38 per cent, higher than previous figure of 7.10 per cent. Higher inflation amid tight liquidity conditions led the prices to fall further.

The actively traded 11-year benchmark 7.38 per cent 2015 paper was traded at a low of Rs101.25 before it closed marginally higher at Rs101.30. Yield on the paper went as high as 7.20 per cent. The paper had closed in the previous session at Rs103.20.

The 6.65 per cent 2009 paper closed below par at 99.65 after it had traded at a low of Rs99.55.

Call rates in the inter-bank market stayed in a range of 5.80-6.50 per cent as liquidity crunch continued.
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Infosys for another ADS issue
Bangalore: Infosys Technologies is planning a secondary American Depository Shares (ADS) issue. This is its second in the last two years.

The company'S board of directors is scheduled to meet on November 8 to consider the issue.

Market speculation is putting the issue size in the range of $500m.

Earlier, in July '03, Infosys had done its first sponsored ADS of 3m equity shares at a price of $49 per ADS. The offer had attracted up to 14.8m shares by existing shareholders. Infosys, so far, has been the only Indian company to go for a sponsored secondary ADS issue.

A sponsored ADS issue is essentially meant to infuse liquidity in overseas stock markets by converting local shares into ADS.
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