Stock Market Today

The Emirates flight EK-505 was preparing for takeoff to Dubai, United Arab Emirates, when it was halted after the airport received the call saying two passengers on board belonged to a terror group, the official said on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak to reporters.

An Emirates official confirmed the delay in Mumbai and said two passengers were taken off the plane. A male passenger – identified as Shahbaz – and his wife have been detained by the Sahar Airport police for questioning.

The procedure went on for over four hours.  The flight left for Dubai shortly after 2 p.m., the official said.

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) Friday shifted the second ODI between India and South Africa, on February 24, from Kanpur to Gwalior. The Board did not give any reason for the change. “The second ODI between India and South Africa scheduled to be played at Kanpur on 24th February has now been shifted to Gwalior,” secretary N. Srinivasan said in a statement. The first ODI will be played in Jaipur on February 21 while the third and final tie will be held in Ahmedabad on February 27.

The worst may be over but we are still not out of trouble. That seems to be the message from the third quarter financial results that have just gotten over.

While some sectors such as IT and automobiles have done well, others are still in the doldrums. Despite stro-ng positive surprises from sectors such as IT and automobiles, there are still areas of concern. Investors looking for growth could consider IT, automobiles and banking, say brokers who spoke to this publication.

“IT results were the big surprise,” says Mr Apurv Shah of Prabhudas Lilad-her. All the three IT majors, Infosys, Wipro and TCS delivered better than expec-ted results despite a weaker dollar. “Auto ancillary was another sector that has done well. Autos did well too, but that was more or less on expected lines,” he adds.

A leading broking house said that except for IT where results were uniformly good, the rest of the sectors saw a mixed bag. In capital goods L&T disappointed but others did well. In telecom, Idea did not disappoint but others did. The recovery is not extremely strong. Even if companies’ profits grew 50-60 per cent it was on a very low base of the 2008 quarter. In the co-ming quarters, IT, steel and banks are amongst the sectors that analysts feel will do well in the coming year.

“We can expect tremendous numbers from metals because demand is good as the economies are coming out of recession globally and domestically the infrastructure demand is growing” says Mr Alex Mathew of Geojit BNP Paribas. “Private banks are also expected to do well for the year,” he says. The primary concerns, which could affect the recovery include an increase in interest rates, increasing raw material prices and the government withdrawing the stimulus package. While the overall improvement in conditions has seen several companies tapping the equity markets, brokers rule out a case of euphoria. “Retail investors are still keeping away from issues that seem overpriced. So the situation hasn’t yet developed into a bubble” says Mr Shah. In construction sector, the orders are there. It is execution which is the problem. In case of banks, sanctions for loans are all there – the problem is with disbursements.

Its too early to call it euphoria — for instance, retail investors are keeping away.

The US President, Mr Barack Obama, on Monday projected the US budget deficit would peak at a fresh record in 2010 before easing as he pushes for fiscal responsibility while battling double-digit unemployment.

Dubbed an old-style liberal tax-and-spender by his Republican opponents, Mr Obama is under pressure to convince investors and big creditors like China that he has a credible plan to control the country’s deficit and debt over time.

“In the long term, we cannot have sustainable and durable economic growth without getting our fiscal house in order,” Mr Obama said in a statement with the budget’s formal release.

His budget for the fiscal year to September 30, 2011, a blueprint that is subject to change by the US Congress, forecast a deficit of $1.56 trillion in 2010, or 10.6 per cent of the economy measured by gross domestic product (GDP). The rise was partly due to the $787 billion stimulus package that Mr Obama pushed through Congress early last year to fight the recession.

Republicans seized on the grim fiscal forecast to criticise Mr Obama’s handling of the economy.

Senator Judd Gregg, the leading Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, warned that the country was sinking into a “quagmire” of debt and said Mr Obama’s stimulus plan had failed to create jobs.

“These circumstances call for a bold, game-changing budget that will turn things around, put in place a plan to restrain spending, reduce the debt and tackle the big entitlement programs that are growing out-of-control,” he said. “Instead, the President has sent us more of the same.”

Mr Obama plans to save money from 2011 by curbing 120 projects, including space mission to return to the moon, but will invest in education and research.

But analysts surveyed the numbers with a healthy dose of skepticism. “I don’t think there is anything out there that is job creating and I don’t have much confidence that some of the spending cuts will happen,” said a New York-based equity strategist.

HINDUJA GROUP flagship company Ashok Leyland on Sunday reported 455 per cent
jump in net profit for the quarter ended December at Rs 105 crore on the back of robust sales growth. The automobile manufacturer had registered a net profit of Rs 19 crore in the same quarter a year ago. Sales revenue was up 81 per cent at Rs 1,815.53 crore against Rs 1,004.49 crore in the corresponding period the previous fiscal.

During the quarter under review, the volume of sales saw a whopping increase of 101 per cent and stood at 16,129 units, as against the 8,011units it had sold in the year-ago period, the company said in a statement.Ashok Leyland Q3 net up 455%

Nikkei Stock Average 225 down 0.39 percent at 10,158.75.
Hang Seng Index down 201.38 points at 19,920.61.
KOSPI Index down 0.47 pct at 1,594.86.
Shanghai Composite Index down 1.66 pct at 2,939.81.

US Markets
US Markets ended lower on Friday.Dow Jones industrial average down 53 points,down 0.52 percent, to 10,067. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index ended down 0.98 percent down 11 points to 1,074. The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index lost 1.45 percent down 32 points to 2,147.

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If you are planning to make a big purchase on credit, it may be a good idea to do it in the next three months.

Bankers are betting that interest rates are likely to increase by about one per cent over the next one year. The Reserve Bank of India has indicated that it is concerned about inflation, which could go up further.

However, it also refrained from sending a direct signal to banks to hike rates. The Indian financial system currently has excess cash — the so called liquidity — which can push up prices as the economy recovers. RBI’s move at this point pulls out the excess liquidity from the system. However, going forward, the central bank is likely to target inflation directly by pushing up interest rates. “The CRR hike today by the RBI was a passive move,” says Abheek Barua, economist with HDFC Bank.

“A hike in rates — such as repo and reverse-repo, would be an aggressive measure,” he adds. He is expecting these rates to increase by one per cent over the next 12 months. Repo rate is the rate at which RBI lends money to banks, while reverse repo is the interest banks earn on money parked with RBI. Mr Barua expects a hike in these during the next credit policy, which will set in April. Stock markets, initially, reacted negatively but later recovered the losses. The Sensex sank nearly 100 points when the CRR hike was announced but recovered swiftly when the market realised this would not impact lending rates of liquidity for growth in the immediate future.

The RBI governor. Dr D. Subbarao, in his post third quarter monetary and credit policy 2009-10 briefing to the media, said the bankers he had met earlier on Friday morning to discuss credit policy issues informed him that this CRR hike would not put immediate pressure on lending rates.

The RBI raised its projections of GDP growth from six per cent announced in its October policy to 7.5 per cent as activity in the real sector had picked up. Dr Subbarao said even if agriculture growth is near zero the growth in industrial production and services will support the projected growth.

Indra Nooyi, the first Indian-born chief executive at PepsiCo, wants a quota system to get more women at the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Nooyi ranked No. 3 on Forbes’ 100 Most Powerful Women list last year laments that at this “one-of-a-kind initiative,” women are still grossly underrepresented.

“We are up to 15 percent now, but I think the numbers should be more like 40 percent-50 percent,” she told ForbesWoman at Davos noting that one of the problems is that women have not “done enough” to bring other women into Davos.

While she acknowledged that definitive conclusions were rarely, if ever, reached at the Swiss resort, it is a time for great leaders, executives and thinkers to talk about issues in a “fairly open way.”

The 54-year-old business leader believes that bringing together a critical mass of women at Davos would ensure that women’s issues were more prominent on the agenda.

Putting women on panels and having a quota system where every panel has at least one woman would “change the whole nature of Davos,” she asserts. And just getting women to Davos at least once to “show them how powerful Davos could be,” is the first step on a long road to success, she maintains.

Women’s issues aside, Nooyi’s outlook on 2010 is cautiously optimistic. While the Western economies-the US and Western Europe-are still struggling, the Middle East is experiencing tremendous buoyancy, she says.

Citing employment and job creation as the “engine of growth,” Nooyi warns that North America, Mexico and Western Europe have to ramp up their efforts on these fronts, this year.

“At this point, we have to put our faith in all of the leaders and hope that all of the policy actions they’re taking actually leads to something,” she concludes.

Jr.NTR marriage was fixed with StudioN channel chairman’s (chandrababu naidu’s relative) daughter Lakshmi Pranathi. Lakshmi pranathi studying intermediate 2nd year and she is 18 years old.

Nandamuri Taraka Rama Rao (born May 20, 1983) more popularly known as NTR Jr and young NTR.,is an actor.He is a grandson of the late Nandamuri Taraka Rama Rao, who was a fine actor, founder of the Telugu Desam Party, He is the son of Harikrishna and Shalini. Called Tarak by his family, friends and close associates; he later changed his name to Taraka Rama Rao in honor of his grandfather. He has two half-brothers, Mr. N. Janaki Ram and Mr. N. Kalyan Ram (both older) and one half-sister, Mrs. Suhasini.

NTR began his career as a kid artist. His first step into Tollywood was with his grandfather’s movie Brahmarshi Viswamithra and then Bala Ramayanam, directed by Gunasekhar. Coincidentally, his character in the second movie was Lord Sri Rama, a role often played by his grandfather NTR.