Indian Stock Picks - Share Ideas , News, Fundamentals

The Hindu Business Line Axis Bank (Rs 1,005.75): Sell We recommend a sell in Axis Bank at current market price. From the weekly chart of Axis Bank we note that it had been on a long-term uptrend from its August 2007 low of Rs 534 till its lifetime-high of Rs 1,291 touched in mid-January. However, ... More

Asia mkts rise on W-Street's advance (The Economic Times 25th Jan 2008)Asian markets rallied on Friday, taking heart from Wall Street where new economic data offered a glimmer of hope for an economy that many fear is slipping into a recession. The strong advance further lifted Asian markets from their swoon earlier this week, but traders still warned that trading would likely be volatile. Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index jumped nearly 6 percent in early trade before trimming some gains. By midmorning, it was up 1,138 points, or 4.83 percent, at 24,667 points. The index fell 2.2 percent the previous day. More Mid-cap segment worst hit (The Economic Times 25th Jan 2008) Of late the market has made for a fickle companion, as many investors and brokers discovered. The swiftness with which the one-time ‘darlings’ of the market went out of favour is particularly evident in the mid-cap segment, the worst hit in the recent bear mauling. It took three days for the BSE midcap index to lose ...

FM hints at hot money curbs (Business Standard 25th Jan 2008) Moderates 2008-09 growth projections to 8.5%; rules out Indian sovereign wealth fund. Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram said India is compelled to “moderate” excessive flows of speculative capital due to aggressive interest rate cuts by the US Federal Authority that sharply widened interest rate differentials. He, however, ruled out capital controls at this juncture or in future by suggesting that India always welcomed foreign direct investment as well as savings from non-resident Indians. The Reserve Bank will adopt “moderating” measures to ensure that excessive speculative flows did not aggravate inflationary pressures in the economy, he said. The statement is significant just ahead of the central bank’s review of its monetary policy due September 29. More

Reliance Capital profit jumps 86% to Rs135 cr (Live mint.com 25th Jan 2008)The Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group firm, Reliance Capital Ltd (RCL), on Thursday reported a 86% jump in its third quarter (Q3) net profit, helped by 210% growth in total income. The stand-alone net profit for the fiscal 2008 October-December quarter stood at Rs135 crore, compared with Rs73 crore in the year-ago quarter. Total income jumped to Rs376 crore in the latest quarter, from Rs121 crore reported in the year-ago period, the firm said. On a consolidated basis, RCL’s net profit rose 28% to Rs118 crore for the just concluded quarter from Rs92 crore in the same period last year, while the total income witnessed a growth of 165%, to Rs1,156 crore from Rs436 crore in the corresponding quarter last year. Its mutual fund and insurance businesses contributed to the income. RCL shares fell 6.56% to Rs1,840.90 on the Bombay Stock Exchange even as the exchange’s benchmark index, the Sensex, closed 2.12% down at 17,221.7...

Tech spending logs slowest growth in ’07 (Live mint.com 25th Jan 2008)At a time that Indian tech and back-office services vendors maintain that they don’t see any signs of slowdown in demand for their offerings, a survey by a leading outsourcing advisory firm has come out with findings that indicate that buyers of such outsourced services have begun tightening their spending. But the early trend, even if it accelerates, may not affect Indian software and business process outsourcing services firms, industry insiders and analysts said. The total value of software outsourcing contracts in 2007 grew the slowest in five years with the December quarter recording the lowest number of such deals in the last nine quarters, according to Technology Partners International, Inc. or TPI, a Houston, Texas firm that tracks tech outsourcing deals. Last year, around 487 contracts were signed worth more than $80 billion or Rs3.16 trillion, which was $8 billion less than the five-year average for deals ...

SBI net grows 70% in Q3 on higher income (The Hindu Business Line 25th Jan 2008)State Bank of India’s net profit for the third quarter of the fiscal rose 70 per cent on the back of an increase in both interest and non-interest income. The country’s largest bank reported a net profit of Rs 1,809 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2007, against Rs 1,065 crore in the same year-ago quarter. Yield on advances increased to 9.93 per cent (8.61 per cent) while the cost of deposits also increased to 5.55 per cent (4.71 per cent), mainly due to higher term deposits mobilisations and higher interest rates. More

Once MF top picks, now value buys (CNBC-TV18, Moneycontrol.com 24th Jan 2008) Which stocks now represent value, post the correction and mild recovery? CNBC-TV18 takes some top picks from a list of mutual funds and private equity players, from the time that they picked up their stakes and evaluates. There have been interesting price movements in some of the stocks, but more importantly the basis for these movements are far more interesting. The first stock on our list is Praj Industries, it's trading around Rs 165 and hence fallen nearly 40% from its peak at Rs 265 per share. But interestingly, Tata Sons bought nearly 7.34% stake at Rs 252 per share, so one pays around 35% less than what Tatas paid at the time of acquisition of their stake. Jai Corp is another stock where the price is trading around Rs 815 and fallen around 44% from its peak of around Rs 1,450. This was the biggest private equity dealing stock in the secondary market and the company raised around USD 500 billion at...