Kent Resorts sells 11 lakh shares of Karur Vysya Bank

On April 03, 2012 Kent Resorts Private Limited sold 1,100,000 shares of Karur Vysya Bank at Rs 382 on the NSE. However, Golden Oak (Mauritius) Limited bought 1,100,500 shares at Rs 382 on the NSE. Yesterday the share closed at Rs 378.75

The company touched its 52-week high Rs 479.15 and 52-week low Rs 322.30 on 15 Jul, 2011 and 28 Dec, 2011, respectively. Currently, it is trading -20.78% below its 52-week high and 17.78% above its 52-week low. Market capitalisation stands at Rs 4,068.57 crore.

The company's trailing 12-month (TTM) EPS was at Rs 35.54 per share. (Dec, 2011). The stock's price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio was 10.68. The latest book value of the company is Rs 198.47 per share. At current value, the price-to-book value of the company was 1.91. The dividend yield of the company was 3.16%.

BHEL eastern region turnover rises 24% in FY12

Turnover of eastern region of heavy engineering public-sector unit BHEL increased 24% at Rs 2,700 crore during the financial year 2011-12, a company official said. "The eastern region of BHEL achieved a turnover of Rs 2,700 crore in 2011-12 against Rs 2,174 crore in the previous fiscal", executive director of BHEL, eastern region, Rajiv Kumar said.

Gross profit from the region increased 29% in 2011-12 at Rs 157.87 crore compared to Rs 122.15 crore in the previous fiscal, he told reporters here yesterday. In the next financial year, the targeted turnover is Rs 3,100 crore and gross profit is pegged at Rs 374 crore, Kumar said. He added in the eastern region, 17,000 MW of capacity addition is under execution in various stages.

During 2011-12, BHEL eastern region had added 2,838 MW of capacity addition, the highest ever, he said. The cumulative order position in the eastern region of BHEL in 2012-13 and beyond stood at Rs 7,153 crore. BHEL eastern region was involved in setting up power plants abroad, he said.

Reports on troop movement 'absolutely stupid'

Army Chief Gen VK Singh today dismissed as "absolutely stupid" a report that the Indian government panicked for several hours in the face of unexplained troop movements near Delhi in January.

"This is absolutely stupid," Singh said when asked to comment on the report. The report in Indian Express that said the government was "spooked" on the night of January 16-17, because of the movement of a mechanised infantry battallion from Haryana's Hisar and a sizeable section of 50 Para Brigade created a storm in the government.

In New Delhi yesterday, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the defence establishment dismissed as "alarmist" and "absolutely baseless". The Army Chief is in Nepal to attend the three-day Regional Seminar on Natural Disaster Management and Humanitarian Assistance.

Petrol price hike soon

Oil retailers like Hindustan Petroleum , Bharat Petroleum and Indian Oil Corp are hoping to go ahead with the hike soon but may not pass on entire burden to consumers. The hike could be anything between Rs 3-5.

Currently, oil marketers lose around Rs 6.43 on each litre of petrol sold. This is despite the commodity being de-regulated by the government in 2010, companies have not been able to hike price to lessen their losses due to political pressure. HPCL, BPCL and IOC last raised prices in September last year and since then have been seeking government approval to increase prices based on market dynamics.

Meanwhile, companies are also seeking de-regulation of diesel and liquefied petroleum gas prices but the government is yet to arrive at a consensus on this issue.

 According to reports in the April-December 2011 period all companies have collectively incurred loss of Rs 98,000 crore on selling diesel, cooking gas and kerosene below market cost. Of this, upstream companies like ONGC, Oil India and Gail contributed about 37% as per government policies.

Sensex ends 346 pts up

The Nifty made an excellent start to the April series, fanned by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee's clarifications on Participatory Notes effective April 1. "The intention of the government is not to harass genuine investors. Income Tax department will examine taxability of FIIs and would not to go beyond FII issuing P-notes." the FM said. Following this, the BSE benchmark surged 345.59 points or 2.03%, to close at 17,404.20 supported by 28 stocks while the NSE benchmark rose 116.70 points or 2.25% to 5,295.55, after hitting an intraday high of 5,307.10. The market posted first weekly gains in six weeks, ending with moderate gains for the week.

Indian rupee too registered a 55-point appreciation to 50.85 to a dollar, after the Reserve Bank of India bought bonds worth Rs 10,000 crore via open market operations (OMOs), which in turn helped market's sentiment. 

Although, market managed to trim losses via gains made in the last quarter of FY 12, but both Sensex and Nifty finished the year down 9-10% compared to FY 11.

Mehraboon Irani, Nirmal Bang Securities says, since December 2011, the Indian market has been driven only by one factor and that is global liquidity. "But fundamentally we remain on a weak wicket," he asserts.

He expects a pleasant surprise for the market in April. "We will have to watch the global liquidity flows. I believe that can possibly help us having a positive surprise as far as equity market goes because there will be a lot of liquidity around which is yet to be parked. If we have a stimulus coming from US also in June-July, which I think the chances would be 50% right now, we could be having much higher levels," he asserts.

The BSE Bankex, which shot up more than 25% in the current quarter, rose 2.55% today. Country's largest private sector lender ICICI Bank spiked 3.6% while rival State Bank of India was up 1.6% and HDFC Bank up 1.8%. Kotak Mahindra Bank jumped 4%.

The Oil & Gas, Realty, Metal, Auto, IT, Capital Goods and Healthcare indices were up 2-3%.

Index heavyweights and oil & gas producers Reliance Industries and ONGC gained 3.2% and 2.5%, respectively.

Infosys and Tata Consultancy Services, top software services provider moved up 1.5-2.5%. Capital goods majors L&T and BHEL were up 2-3%.

Among metals, shares of Tata Steel, Coal India and Hindalco surged 3-4%. Maruti Suzuki, country's largest car maker rallied 3.76%. However, Jindal Steel and Sun Pharma were only losers, falling 1.24% and 0.23%, respectively.

Oil marketing companies like BPCL and IOC gained 2-3% on hopes that the government may hike petrol prices soon. Shares of HPCL shot up 7%.

About 3.5 shares advanced for every share gaining on the National Stock Exchange. The BSE Midcap and Smallcap indices were up 2% each.

On the global front, European markets too were positive, rising 0.65-1.3%. The Dow Jones futures gained 55 points.