Rupee rises on sharp share gains

The rupee strengthened on Monday on the back of sharp gains in domestic shares and gains in other Asian peers.

* At 9:58 am, the partially convertible rupee was at 45.84/85 per dollar, stronger than 46.145/155 at close on Friday.

* Domestic shares were trading up 2.4%, in line with other Asian markets after the US Federal Reserve chairman left the door open for further action to stimulate the world's biggest economy.

* The dollar came under light pressure against a basket of major currencies in Asia on Monday, with traders speculating the Federal Reserve may offer more stimulus next month in the face of an uncertain growth outlook.

* Most Asian currencies were stronger compared to the dollar.

* The index of the dollar against six major currencies was down 0.1% at 73.741 points in Asian trade, much below 74.017 points when the domestic forex market closed on Friday.

Nifty rises 100 points

Investors are choosing India over other Asian peers this morning. Broadbased buying took the 30-share BSE Sensex was trading at 16,196, up 345 points and the 50-share NSE Nifty jumped 101 points to 4,849.

Technology stocks were completely on buyers' radar; respective index shot up over 3%.

The BSE Bank, Metal, Realty, Oil & Gas, Capital Goods and Auto indices surged 2-2.7%. The broader indices too were following the same trend; the BSE Midcap and Smallcap indices were up 1.5% each.

Among largecaps, Jindal Steel was the biggest gainer; the stock jumped 6%. Reliance Infrastructure, IDFC, TCS, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Infosys, Reliance Industries and Wipro rallied 3-4.5%.

However, Sesa Goa was the only loser on Nifty as company halted its mining operations at Chitradurga Mine. The stock fell 1.86%.

Market breadth was positive; about four shares advanced for every share declining

RIL, ONGC in close race for India's most-valued co title

In a veritable game of musical chairs, energy giantsReliance Industries and ONGC pipped each other several times to the position of the country's most-valued firm during afternoon trade in the stock market today.

In early afternoon trade, ONGC toppled RIL as the country's most valued firm, but its lead lasted only for a few seconds before the private sector corporate giant grabbed the top slot again.

Within minutes, ONGC again passed RIL on the market valuation charts, albeit only for a few seconds, and a kind of race was on between the two, with less than a 0.1% difference in their market valuations.

At 1313 hours, ONGC shares were trading 0.43% up on the BSE, giving the company a market value of Rs 242,462 crore, higher than RIL's Rs 242,201 crore.

ABN AMRO cuts 9% of jobs

Nationalised Dutch bank ABN AMRO is shedding 2,350 jobs - some 9% of its workforce - as the state readies it for sale or a listing.

The bank said it expected 1,500 redundancies and 850 positions to be lost through natural attrition in the next three to four years.

Most of the job cuts will be in back-office operations such as IT, but some retail and private banking positions will also be axed. The bank said it has taken a restructuring provision of 200 million euros pre-tax for the redundancies.

Global banks have announced close to 50,000 job cuts in recent months in the face of sluggish economic growth, volatile markets and regulatory changes.

The Dutch state, which nationalised ABN AMRO during the 2008 financial crisis, plans to sell ABN AMRO in 2014 or later, preferably by listing it on the stock market, so improving efficiency would make the bank more attractive to potential buyers.

Historically, ABN AMRO has had a relatively high cost-to-income ratio compared with other banks.

It said its cost-income ratio fell to 63% at the end of June, from 75% a year ago.

Dutch rival ING has reported an underlying cost-income ratio of 59.2%, while Rabobank has an efficiency ratio of 59.7%.

The Dutch government nationalised the Dutch operations of ABN AMRO and Fortis for 16.8 billion euros when Belgian-Dutch Fortis group lost investors' confidence at the height of the credit crisis in 2008.

ABN AMRO said in a statement it wanted to improve its services to customers by offering new products such as banking on mobile phones, and reduce bureaucracy, resulting in the job cuts.

The bank said it would pay an interim dividend of 200 million euros, its first since it was bailed out and nationalised.

Underlying second-quarter net profit rose to 391 million euros from 11 million euros a year ago thanks to higher non-interest income and lower provisions.

Underlying results exclude integration and separation costs due to the ABN AMRO break-up following the takeover by Royal Bank of Scotland, Santander and Fortis in 2007.

Sensex below 16k

The BSE Sensex sliped below 16000 investors dumped realty, metal, power, banks and oil & gas stocks. Barring Reliance Media Works, rest of ADAG pack tumbled between 3%-7%. Heavyweights Stocks like Reliance, ITC, ICICI Bank, L&T and HDFC Bank were major laggard to the index.

At 13.52 hrs IST, the Sensex was down 184.70 points or 1.14% to trade  at 15961.63, and the Niftywas down 59.95 points or 1.24% to trade at 4779.65.

About 816 shares advanced as a decline of against 1837 shares declined, and 1021 shares remained unchanged.

Top losers on the Sensex: Jaiprakash Asso at Rs 56.15 (down 5.47%), DLF at Rs 178.05 (down 4.58%), NTPC at Rs 163 (down 4.15%), Tata Steel at Rs 426.55 (down 3.8%) and Tata Power at Rs 1,008 (down 3.62%).