Aishwarya gives birth to a girl

Bollywood actress Aishwarya Rai Bachchan has delivered a baby girl today at the Seven Hills Hospital in suburban Andheri here.

"IT'S A GIRL!!!!!! :-)))))," Abhishek Bachchan wrote on social networking site twitter. "I AM DADA to the cutest baby girl !! Dadaji... ecstatic!!!!," Amitabh Bachchan wrote on twitter.

It was in June this year that Amitabh Bachchan had broken the news that his daughter-in-law was 

Nifty slips towards 5000

The 30-share BSE Sensex has continued to trade with 100 points fall due to sell-off in private banking, capital goods, select technology and auto stocks. Heavyweight Reliance Industries too fell into bears' grip, falling 2%. The 30-share BSE Sensex dropped 164 points to 16,719 and the 50-share NSENifty slipped 57 points to 5,011.

Among the largecaps, SAIL, BPCL, GAIL, Hero Motocorp, Jaiprakash Associates and Coal India dropped 2-4%. BHEL was the biggest loser on the street, losing 5% while L&T crashed nearly 4%.

However, M&M, Jindal Steel, SBI, Cipla, Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communications and DLF gained 1-2%.

SBI, L&T, ICICI Bank, Idea Cellular, Tata Steel, Bharti Airtel and Axis Bank were most active shares on exchanges.

Indian rupee has depreciated by 20 paise to 50.86 a dollar today, though it showed some recovery.

PN Vijay, portfolio manager shares that the midcap damage over the past few days could be courtesy the earnings performance. He says the Q2 earnings has been primarily hit by two reasons — the rupee-dollar scenario and the demand destruction. He expects RBI’s intervention to get rupee back to sub 50 levels.

In the midcap space, DB Realty, Shriram City, Sterling Tools, Shree Global and Bajaj Hindusthan rallied 3-10% while Kwality Dairy plunged 20%. Sintex Industries, KSK Energy Ventures, Rashtriya Chemical and SKS Microfinance slipped 5-7.5%.

The market breadth has remained in favour of declines; more than three shares slipped for every share rising on the National Stock Exchange.

At -:20 hours IST : Sensex falls 100 pts in opening; rupee nears 51 per dollar

Indian equity benchmark Sensex fell 100 points in the opening trade due to depreciating rupee to near 51 a dollar (falls 0.5%). Weak Asian cues on eurozone debt crisis too weighed on the India; Shanghai, Hang Seng dropped 2%. Nikkei, Straits Times, Kospi and Taiwan fell 0.5-1%.

The 30-share BSE Sensex slipped 97.55 points to 16,785.12 and the 50-share NSE Nifty lost 34 points to 5,034.45.

Oil marketing companies like BPCL, IOC and HPCL fell 2-3% after cut in petrol prices with effective from midnight.

Capital goods space: L&T, BHEL and Siemens were down 2% each.

JSPL, SAIL, Sesa Goa, Axis Bank, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, HCL Tech, Cola India, Tata Power, Hero Motocorp, Ranbaxy and Reliance Industries too were under pressure.

However, Bharti Airtel, DLF, Dr Reddy's Labs and Reliance Infrastructure were on buyers' radar.

The CNX Midcap fell 25 points to 6,837. About two shares declined for every share rising on National Stock Exchange.

Stocks in news

Jet Airways lost 2% while Kingfisher Airlines was up 1.5%.

MSCI added in its portfolio: PFC was up 2% and Idea rallied 3.5%.

Educomp Solutions rose 1% on short covering as it lost 25% in previous three days.

Shree Renuka Sugars too saw short covering, gaining 2% after losing over 30% in earlier three days.

Tech Mahindra declined over 1% post Q2 numbers.

IVRCL dropped 3.5% and UCO Bank lost 2%. Sintex crashed 7%.

Petrol cheaper by Rs 1.80 per litre across India tonight

New Delhi:  There is finally good news for all of us. After a nationwide outrage over the recent fuel price hike, oil marketing companies have reduced petrol prices by Rs 1.80 per litre before VAT.

What this means is that in Delhi, petrol will be Rs 2.25 cheaper per litre. Price cuts are expected to be higher in other cities like Mumbai and Kolkata, where VAT is higher.

Prices have been raised four times this year, the last two price hikes coming within two months of each other. Petrol prices went up by Rs 3.14 in September and then by Rs 1.82 two weeks ago, causing much outrage among people and political parties.

Last week, RS Butola, the Chairman of the state-owned Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), India's largest fuel retailer, said the oil companies would cut petrol prices by today, as long as crude prices continued to fall globally.

In an exclusive interview to NDTV, Mr Butola had said that oil companies were committed to passing on any benefit from lower prices to consumers, even though they had already incurred a loss of around Rs. 2,500 crores  on the sale of petrol this year.

Petrol was deregulated or freed from government control in June 2010. This allows oil companies to raise or lower prices in keeping with global market dynamics.

Sensex opens volatile

The BSE benchmark gained 50 points in the opening trade on Tuesday after a long weekend, tracking positive global cues. A confidence vote in Italy is awaited later in the day, which will have an impact on the markets. In the morning, oil & gas, capital goods, metal and select financial stocks were on buyers' radar. The 30-share BSE Sensex gained 57 points at 17,620.02 and the 50-share NSE Nifty rose 16 points to 5,300.45 amid volatility.

ONGC surged 3.5% post stellar performance in Q2. It has posted a net profit of Rs 8642.23 crore for the quarter ended September 30, up 60% year-on-year boosted by lower subsidy payments and gains from high crude oil and gas prices.

Tata Motors, Reliance Infrastructure (ahead of numbers today), Bharti Airtel, Hero Motocorp, Axis Bank, HDFC Bank, HDFC, Sterlite Industries, Hindalco, SBI, BHEL and L&T were leading the market higher.

The CNX Midcap went up 30 points to 7,350. About two shares gained for every share falling on National Stock Exchange.

Results Reaction: SKS Microfinance fell 10%; Parsvnath Developers down 2.5%; Motherson Sumi fell 5%; Jain Irrigation rose 2%; Emami lost 1.6%; Punj Lloyd surged 3.5% and MTNL gained 0.8%.

Voltas and Petronet LNG jumped 2%.

Global cues

Markets are happy to see these ministers (Greece, Italy) resigning. SGX Nifty rallied 1%.

Asian markets were trading higher. Shanghai, Hang Seng and Straits Times rose 0.5-0.8%. Kospi and Taiwan were flat.

petrol price hike as retail losses increase

State-run Hindustan Petroleum Corp (HPCL) is considering a further increase in petrol prices as it struggles to cut down on retailing losses.

Talking to CNBC-TV18, B Mukherjee, director of finance at HPCL, he says, "We are losing about Rs 1.50 per litre. To cover up this loss, since, there are sales taxes too that need to be taken into account, there needs to be a price hike to the tune of Rs 1.82 per litre. And, that is the position of OMCs (oil marketing companies)."

The oil refining and marketing firm, which posted a quarterly loss of Rs 33.6 billion on Tuesday, is in talks with other retailers on the issue and a price increase could come as soon as within the next two weeks.

The company also said it is looking to buy overseas oil and gas assets in Australia and Africa, and may partner with other firms in that effort, he said, without giving more detail. HPCL owns stakes in three exploration blocks in Australia and Egypt.

Raising the petrol price by Rs 1.82 per litre would be an increase of 2.7%from the current Delhi price.

"It may happen. We will see," he replied, when asked if the increase was likely within the next two weeks.

HPCL and its fellow state oil product sellers Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd (BPCL) and Indian Oil Corp last raised petrol prices by nearly 5% in September to ease their subsidy burdens, but added to stubbornly high inflation in Asia's third-largest economy.

The three state giants tend to move their prices in tandem.

India's headline inflation in September stood at 9.72% and has topped 9% for nearly a year, prompting the RBI to lift its policy lending rate last month for the 13th time since March 2010.

India granted autonomy to state-run firms last year to fix retail prices for petrol, but the government continues to control prices of diesel, cooking gas and kerosene. The government last allowed a diesel price increase in June.

Last week, BPCL posted a loss of Rs 32.3 billion and said results had been adversely affected by high crude oil and product prices that did not fully pass that cost on to consumers.

Meanwhile, a falling rupee, the Indian currency is down 11% against the dollar since a late July peak, adds to the imported oil bill for India's three big state oil marketers.

HPCL's net loss for the July-September quarter compared with net profit of 20.9 billion a year earlier. Net sales rose to Rs 370.3 billion, from 307.1 billion in the year-earlier quarter.

Gross under-recoveries for the quarter nearly doubled to 46.86 billion rupees, from Rs 24.24 billion a year ago, Mukherjee said.

Gross refining margins, a key measure of profitability, fell to USD 1.92 per barrel for the quarter, from USD 2.66 a barrel in the same quarter last year.

Shares in HPCL, valued by the market at USD 2.3 billion, ended 0.4% higher, outperforming a broader market that ended 1.3% lower. The stock has dropped 14.6% in the year to date, in line with the main stock index.