Mumbai, July 6: A benchmark index for the Indian equities markets Friday closed 17 points down on global growth concerns. Realty, metal and consumer durable stocks were the worst performers.

The 30-scrip sensitive index (Sensex) of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), which opened in the positive at 17,546.04 points, closed 17,521.12 points, down 0.10 per cent or 17.55 points from its previous close at 17,538.67 points.

The wider 50-scrip S&P CNX Nifty of the National Stock Exchange also was down 0.19 per cent at 5,316.95 points.

The BSE realty index was down 21.23 points, metal index was down 120.73 points while the consumer durable index was down 70.36 points.

India markets turned negative taking cues from weak global peers as monetary policy easing by the central banks in China, Britain and eurozone signalled that the global economic growth may decline further.

In a coordinated move, the European Central Bank on Thursday cut key policy rate by 0.25 per cent, the People’s Bank of China reduced one-year deposit rate by 0.25 per cent and the Bank of England raised bond purchase target by $78 billion to ease interest rates.

The major Sensex losers were Jindal Steel, down 3.17 per cent at Rs.455.15; Sterlite Inds, down 2 per cent at Rs.107.55; Tata Power, down 1.99 per cent at Rs.103.45; Maruti Suzuki, down 1.93 per cent at Rs.1,216.70; and Hero MotoCorp, down 1.74 per cent at Rs.2,084.65.

The main gainers were ICICI Bank, up 1.55 per cent at Rs.935.20; HDFC, up 1.27 percent at Rs.683.65; Mahindra and Mahindra, up 1.16 per cent at Rs.731.10; Hindustan Unilever, up 1.15 per cent at Rs.445.20; Cipla, up 1.08 percent at Rs.327.95.

In the Asian region, the Japan’s Nikkei closed down 0.65 percent, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 0.04 percent and China’s Composite index rose 1.01 per cent.

At closing bell here, European markets were trading in the red. France’s CAC was down 0.83 per cent, Germany’s DAX and Britain’s FTSE 100 were trading 0.87 per cent 0.38 percent lower respectively.  (IANS)

NEW DELHI, July 6: While the world economy was facing challenging times, India’s growth story was still intact, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has said while promising action on several fronts to restore investor confidence, including clarity on tax matters.

In an exclusive e-mail interview to the Hindustan Times newspaper Friday, the Prime Minister also listed five areas as his priority in the short run to keep the India story going and said charges of policy paralysis in his government were a matter of perception.

According to him, his five priority areas were:

- Bringing complete clarity on tax matters to send a signal that India treats everyone fairly and reasonably

- Controlling fiscal deficit with measures on which consensus was being built (Read: cut in subsidies, and decontrol of transport fuel prices)

- Reviving mutual fund and insurance industries to open new savings options other than gold

- Clearing major proposals on foreign investment and make India a more business-friendly nation

- Giving major push to infrastructure development via the public-private partnership mode, including the Indian Railways.

According to the Prime Minister, while there was, indeed, a slowing down of capital flows from overseas, due to concerns over tax matters, the finance ministry was also issuing clarifications from time-to-time.

“This does not mean things have turned very bad. Coca-Cola has announced to invest $5 billion in India a few days ago. IKEA plans to invest $1 billion. The pessimism in the media and the markets is far more than reality,” he said.

On the perception of policy paralysis, he evaded a direct reply and said there were problems that existed among political parties in the previous government run by the United Progressive Alliance (UPA), but that the focus remained inclusive growth.

“We are passing through a similarly challenging situation and I am confident we will roll out measures to restore economic growth once again,” he said, adding he also did not believe that legislation was a bottleneck to economic growth.

“Barring an issue here and there, most economic steps that need to be taken do not need legislative action,” he said.

“More important is that we political consensus in the government on some policies. These are genuine differences in opinion. So in a democracy, consensus building is the key to long-term economic success and we are steadily moving ahead in doing that.” (IANS)

NEW DELHI, July 6: It is not possible to achieve 9 per cent economic growth during the 12th Five Year Plan period that began on April 1, 2012, Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia said on Friday.

“It is not possible to think of 9 per cent growth. I think somewhere between 8 and 8.5 per cent is feasible,” Ahluwalia said when asked about the possible economic growth during the 12th Plan period (2012-17).

The approach paper for the 12th Five Year Plan (2012-17) approved by the panel led by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has set a target of 9 per cent average annual growth for the period.

Ahluwalia said even 8 per cent growth would not be easy to achieve given the deteriorating global economic situation.

“When I say feasible, that will require major effort. If you don’t do that, there is no god-given right to grow at 8 per cent,” Ahluwalia told reporters on the sidelines of an event organized by the Planning Commission here.

He said growth rate in 2012-13, the first year of the 12th Plan period, is likely to remain around 6.5 to 7 per cent. India’s economic growth slumped to 6.5 per cent in the financial year ended on March 31, 2012, as compared to 8.4 per cent in the previous year. (IANS)

NEW YORK, July 6: US stocks wobbled around the breakeven line on Thursday, as rate cuts in both China and Europe failed to ignite the market.

The European Central Bank cut its deposit rate to 0 per cent from 0.25 per cent, the lowest in history, Xinhua reported.

The People’s Bank of China cut its interest rates, lowering the benchmark lending rate by 31 basis points and the benchmark deposit rate by 25 basis points.

Meanwhile, the Bank of England launched another round of quantitative easing, adding 50 billion euros to its asset purchase programme.

These steps gave world markets a boost at the beginning, but soon waned amid concerns about the global economy. In the US, the ADP National Employment Report released on Thursday showed that the private sector added 1,76,000 new jobs last month.

Meanwhile, the Labour Department reported that applications for jobless benefits decreased by 14,000 in the week ended on June 30 to 3,74,000, the fewest since mid May.

However, investors are still cautious before the government releases its June employment report on Friday, trying to get a bigger picture of the country’s jobs market.

In midday trading, the Dow Jones industrial average lost 31.34 points, or 0.24 per cent, to 12,912.48.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 was down 3.60 points, or 0.26 per cent, to 1,370.42. The Nasdaq Composite Index added 5.41 points, or 0.18 per cent, to 2,981.49. (IANS)

KOLKATA, July 6: India’s Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA) on Friday said it is planning to come out with guidelines for the micro-insurance segment in the country to ensure its growth.

“We are working on coming out with guidelines for the micro-insurance industry. Micro-insurance is important to ensure financial inclusion,” IRDA member (Life) Sudhin Roy Chowdhury told reporters on the sidelines of the 5th ICC Insurance Summit here. “There are a lot of issues in the industry and these needs to be ironed out,” he said. Stating that insurance companies should look at designing some new products to address the specific needs of the micro-insurance industry, Roy Chowdhury said the insurers should also give special emphasis on customer education.

“Customer education will help them penetrate into rural market,” he pointed out. Roy Chowdhury also informed that the IRDA was mulling to introduce guidelines to emphasise on the need to provide customer education in the country.

“Insurance is a technical subject and educating the customer is important. We are asking companies to do that and we are also taking necessary efforts from our end,” he said. He said the insurance regulator was hopeful of coming out with these guidelines too soon. (IANS)

Buy ICICI Bank, Axis Bank, says PN Vijay

Vijay told CNBC-TV18, “In the private banks I would still maintain my buy calls on ICICI Bank, IndusInd Bank and Axis Bank, because they are very top class banks. In the case of ICICI Bank I think if you compared to the last two years price performance, it is still far below what it’s capable of doing and I think they have done a lot of wonders to their balance sheet, which the markets not fully recognize.” He further added, “Axis Bank and IndusInd Bank are very sweet banks, very well run banks. I think all their internal numbers look good and the beta is also fairly decent, so that the moves in the market would be supported by higher moves in these stocks. So in the private sector banks I will go for these.” “In the public sector banks I think State Bank has gone up too much, though it’s a nice bank. I would go for Bank of Baroda, Bank of India and Allahabad Bank. All three look very interesting. All three have improving asset quality, I won’t say good asset quality, but improving asset quality and I expect public sector banks to report decent earnings with less appropriation to bad loans and fairly strong NIMs as credit loan quality has picked up.” “So in a nutshell among private banks I would still support ICICI Bank, Axis Bank and IndusInd Bank and among public sector banks, Bank of Baroda, Bank of India and among the smaller ones Allahabad Bank.”

'Book profits in HDFC'

Manghnani told CNBC-TV18, “I took a buy call on Axis Bank and a sell call on HDFC because I am still not sure what the bank Nifty will do , will it breakout or not. So I went both ways and sort of a hedge. HDFC is one of the weaker ones in the banking pack, this stock used to always lead every rally in the bankex but it is not doing that anymore and 682 is a major 61.8% retracement, so it is probably more a profit taking call where I think now since the stock has rallied from Rs 600 to 680, one can take a profit on it and maybe if you are shorting it then keep a stop of Rs 690.”

ICICI Bank can go upto Rs 1100: Rajesh Agarwal

Agarwal told CNBC-TV18, “For ICICI Bank target of Rs 1,100 is quite achievable but time horizon has to be between six and nine months because as we all know, the country is going through a difficult phase. But the positive thing is the interest rate cycle has been almost peaked out and we all believe that in the coming days interest rates would be start coming down and as soon as that happens, banking stocks would see a rally, ICICI Bank being one of them.” He further added, “Overall the ICICI Bank business has been good in the last year also the performance was very good, the management has even shown their optimism that they are going to achieve a net interest margin of around 2.9% as against 2.73% in FY12. With interest rates almost peaking out and the subsidiaries doing well, I think one can definitely hold on to this stock. Even on valuation parameters trading at around 14 times its FY13 earnings, which is quite attractive hence can hold on to the stock.”

Shree Renuka Sugars has target of Rs 40: Sukhani

Sukhani told CNBC-TV18, “I have been approaching Shree Renuka Sugars with a long bias for a long time. My point is that at Rs 25 we had said go and buy it, at Rs 27, at Rs 29, at Rs 30 and it is Rs 34 now. The targets for this are still Rs 40. But after these big rallies, all stocks correct. If I tell viewers to go and buy it now, it will be unfair to them. So this is not a good time to buy sugar. We have seen spectacular rallies, they inevitably will correct that is the time to reenter. The trend is up.” He further added, “If I compare IDFC with Shree Renuka, it’s a much better chart. The advice is to wait but in case of IDFC, it is consolidating, breakout and consolidating again, something that a wonderful bull market chart does. I am fairly upbeat on IDFC, we have a target of Rs 160 and that could easily be exceeded. This is not a day trade, you buy it and hold it or you keep on trading on the long side and keep on seeing that you have some positions in IDFC always. It is an excellent chart to be in.”