Stock Watch

Overseas investors have invested net Rs. 14,732 crore or USD 3.2 billion in Indian stock markets in March, with their net inflow so far in 2010 touching nearly Rs. 15,500 crore.

With this boosted shopping scenario in local market, the net inflow by foreign institutional investors (FIIs) has registered to exceed Rs.15,000 crore benchmark so far this year, according to the data available with the capital market regulator SEBI.

Sahara Group and Rendezvous Sports World Ltd. have won the ownership of ninth and tenth teams in the Indian Premier League, respectively, for a joint sum of $703 million.

Winning the $370 million bid Sahara Adventure Sports Ltd. would now own the Pune team, while Rendezvous won the Kochi team with a bid of $333 million.

The Sahara Group has remained the sponsor of India’s national cricket team.

The $370 million bid comes out to be triple the $112 million bid won by Mukesh Ambani in 2008, owning the Mumbai team.

Five telecom companies have applied for the 3G auction to be held in the month of April. The Department of Telecom has informed that it has received five applications for the 3G auction and four applications for the Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) auction.

State-run steel company, Steel Authority of India (SAIL) and South Korean major, Posco are expected to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) very soon.

As per the MoU, the two companies would be starting a 5 MT of integrated steel plant in Jharkahnd. The total cost involved in this project is expected to be Rs. 25,000 crore.

Posco is going ahead with the plan even though its Rs. 54,000 crore worth of project is in shackles in the state of Orissa. The total capacity of the plant is said to be 12 MT.

The Reserve Bank of India will bring fresh guidelines on banking licenses in about three months of time. The RBI Deputy Governor K C Chakrabarty has informed that the RBI is looking to complete this job in its specified time but it will definitely depends on various aspects like situations and complexities of issues.

Chakrabarty has said this while he was addressing at an event organized by SKOCH.

However, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee had also indicated that more private sector players can enter into the commercial banking arena in his budget speech last month.

The date available on the SEBI website says that FIIs were net buyers to the tune of USD 85.5 million in equities on 14th March.

A hike by Rs 2,679 crore was seen in NSE F&O Open Interest at Rs 1,22,705 crore.

While net buyers to the tune of Rs 378 crore were FIIS, DIIs were net sellers of Rs 159 crore in cash markets on March 16, confirms the provisional data available on the NSE website. Rs 709 crore were bought by FIIs net in F&O.

On 16th March, FIIs net sold Rs 375 crore in Nifty futures and a hike was seen in Open Interest by 12,086 contracts.

While the first encounter in the third season of IPL was a shocker for the defending champions, Deccan Chargers as the team lost to Kolkata Knight Riders viewers also had to bear much more advertisements than expected.

According to a report by Tam Sports, a division of TAM Media Research, states that ad volumes reached 45 minutes during the first IPL match which is way higher as compared to the 41 minutes of ad volumes in the first and second IPL seasons.

The shares of the India's leading telecom company's Bharti Airtel are trading at their historic low. The stocks of the company have been falling since October 2009 even as the benchmark index has risen marginally.

Investors have expressed worries over unsustainable tariff structure and effects of some of the proposed acquisitions on the financial strength of the company. Despite these concerns, most analysts believe that the company will record strong growth over the long term.

Reliance Industries has announced that it is entering into a joint venture agreement with IMG Worldwide for sports and entertainment as the country is offering great opportunities in the segment.

IMG Worldwide is one of the leading sports marketing and management companies in the world. The two firms will have equal stake in the joint venture. It will focus on creating infrastructure along with coaching facilities for sports and managing sports and entertainment assets.

India's bonds yields have remained mostly steady as the investors are keeping away from buying due to their worries about the inflation data bringing down the value of returns.

Traders are waiting for the release of February inflation data to have an insight into the Reserve Bank of India's monetary policy to be announced on April 20. In the morning trade the yield on the benchmark 10-year bond was at 8 percent after closing at 8.01 percent on Friday.

The bench mark five-year interest rate swap was at 7.05/09 percent compared with its previous close of .05/08 percent.