Sensex Rises; Rupee at 4-Month High

123jump.com Staff
27 Sep, 2010
New York City

Indian stocks and rupee advanced more than 4% in the month as foreign investors step up equity investments. Rupee traded below 45 to a dollar. BPCL plans to expand refining capacity, acquire overseas energy assets and build power plants. Reliance and ONGC receive extension for drilling in KG blocks.

[R]5:00 PM Mumbai – Indian stocks and rupee advanced more than 4% in the month as foreign investors step up equity investments. Rupee traded below 45 to a dollar. BPCL plans to expand refining capacity, acquire overseas oil and gas assets and also build power plant. Reliance and ONGC receive extension for drilling in KG blocks.[/R]

Indian stocks traded higher Monday on fund inflows and a strong rally across Asia after positive data from the U.S. stoked investor interests in these markets.

The BSE Sensex rallied 0.36% or 72.20 to close at 20,117.38.

The Indian rupee also climbed to its strongest level in more than four months, after appreciating on all but three days in September as overseas investors increased their purchases of Indian equities.

The rupee strengthened 4.1% this month against the dollar and traded as high as 44.99 but settled at Rs 45.12.

Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd plans to invest Rs 50,000 crore in the next five years for expansion of refinery capacity, overseas acquisitions of oil and gas assets and setting up of power projects, said a senior official.

“About Rs 25,000 crore will be invested for expansion of refining capacity and upstream activities while the remaining amount will finance explorations and production activities in foreign markets as well as entry into power business,” the newly appointed Chairman, S. Radhakrishnan told Economic Times on Monday

The world’s largest private equity company, Blackstone Group, could earmark up to $2 billion for investment in India over the next three years, stepping up its activity in the country.

New York-based Blackstone already has invested $1.2 billion since it started operations in India five years ago, and its co-founder and chairman, Stephen Schwarzman says the company is looking to expand.

Reliance Industries Ltd and ONGC are likely to get additional time for completing their oil and gas exploration program in the KG Basin fields. Both these companies have three blocks each in the basin where they would require more time to complete exploration activities.

RIL is slated to receive extension till December 2010 for two of its blocks and up to 2103 for the third block. ONGC, on the other hand, will get the deadline for exploration extended to December 2010, May 2011 and September 2011 for its blocks respectively.

Hindustan Petroleum Corp inaugurated a new dark oil products terminal at Port of Visakhapatnam which will be the largest terminal in India to store exclusively dark oil products and the industry’s first fully automated terminal with a capacity of about 94,000 cubic meters.

The terminal will handle furnace oil, bitumen, light vehicle furnace oil, furnace oil blend, LSHS, HFHSD, light diesel oil, JBO and lube oil.

The government is setting up a new body, with a corpus of up to Rs 200 crore, that will help companies develop environment friendly technologies for hybrid and electric vehicles, Joint Secretary at the Ministry of Heavy Industries said.

The National Electric Mobility Mission will try to promote eco-friendly technologies as an alternative to use of non-renewable fuels such as petrol and diesel that dominate the market today. This will also help control air pollution in the country, said Ambuj Sharma, Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Heavy Industry in New Delhi today.

The government imposed anti dumping duty of up to $0.671 per kg on imports of a chemical used in manufacture of household cleaning products from China.

The restrictive duty on Sodium Tripoly Phosphate would range from $0.307 per kg to $0.671 per kg and would be effective up to and inclusive of March 20, 2011, and shall be payable in Indian currency, a notification by the Department of Revenue said.

Gainers & Losers

Arvind Limited fell 1.6% to Rs 42.35 after the garment manufacturer entered into a joint venture agreement with Nitol group, Bangladesh for setting up denim manufacturing plant in Bangladesh with a capacity of 30 million meters.

Abhishek Industries Limited spurted 4.2% to Rs 18.45 after the agro-based paper and yarn maker board approved setting up of 2,75,904 spindles and 2,040 rotors with a capital outlay of Rs 1,117 crore.

Hindustan Construction Company Limited rose 1% to Rs 60.80 after the infrastructure company received a Rs 660-crore contract from GMR Badrinath Hydro Power Generation for setting up a 300-megawatt hydel project in Uttarakhand.

Indo Rama Synthetics India Limited gained 3% to Rs 43.80 after the polyester maker approved raising funds through convertible warrants to promoters and to new investors.

Jaihind Projects Limited declined 1.4% to Rs 252.00 after the construction services in oil and gas won two orders totaling Rs 33.70 crore from Brahmaputra Cracker and Polymer and GAIL (India).

Larsen & Toubro Limited rose 0.4% to Rs 2,026.20 engineering construction secured an order worth Rs 1,610 crore from Visa Power for execution of balance of plant package for its 1,200 megawatt power plant at Chhattisgarh.

Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited fell 0.3% to Rs 63.75 after the telecommunications services American depository receipts rose 7.35% to $2.92 on the New York Stock Exchange on September 24.

Navin Fluorine International Limited surged 11% to Rs 323.80 after the fluoro-chemical maker board approved buyback of 3.38 lakh equity shares at Rs 400 per share at a 23.6% premium over the market price.

Parsvnath Developers Limited increased 2.1% to Rs 146.10 after the developer fixed October 19 as the record date for a 2-for-1 stock split.

Ramco Systems Limited rose 0.6% to Rs 127.35 after the software company secured an order from National Aviation Company of India for providing maintenance repair and overhaul suite of aviation software offerings.

Sintex Industries Limited gained 1.6% to Rs 368.75 after the plastics and textile maker fixed October 28 as the record date for a 2-for-1 stock split.

The Supreme Industries Limited increased 1.2% to Rs 663.05 after the plastic products maker fixed October 19 as the record date for a 5-for-1 stock split.

SKS Microfinance Limited rose 2.9% to Rs 1,370.10 after brokers involved in its recent public offering supported the stock with made positive comments.

Tilaknagar Industries Ltd. slumped 5.2% to Rs 251.80 after the alcoholic beverage industry on profit taking after the stock surged nearly 9% in the preceding three trading sessions.

Texmaco Limited declined 3.8% to Rs 161.00 after the diversified company’s board will meet on October 4 to consider rising up to $30 million via global depository receipts.