Business News

After bottoming out in March, exports have shown steady improvement during each month of the current fiscal.

Even as the Sensex managed to close in the green zone, telecom stocks were hammered further on Thursday amidst worries falling tariffs and increased competition will squeeze profit margins of the sector.

After the fall in telecom companies on Tuesday, it was the turn of tech companies on Wednesday. Shares of tech companies fell on concern that a surging rupee would hit the profit margins of the export-driven sector. Even as the rupee rose by another 22 paise to 46.66/67 against the US currency, the 30-share Sensex closed down 151.88 points at 16,806.66.

A Thai delegation led by Deputy Prime Minister Korbsak Sabhavasu is touring through India today and tomorrow, touting the anticipated expansion of the Thai-Indian bilateral Free Trade Agreement.

On Friday, when IT giant Infosys kicks off the quarterly earning season, Dalal Street bulls will come to know whether they are going in the right direction.

The new management at state-owned power equipment major BHEL insists that the company, held responsible for many a project delay, will improve on timeliness thanks to a new office in China besides a revised policy that allows pre-emptive procurement of materials.

Payment of bonus and ex-gratia on arrears for 2008-09 by Tata Steel to its employees in Jamshedpur has sparked resentment among its staff at Corus, its subsidiary in the UK. The trade union at Corus — Community Union — is now considering legal action to force Corus to pay bonus for employees at Hartlepool and Corby.

The International Monetary Fund said Wednesday that "the global economy has turned a corner" after the harrowing start to 2009 but that only a thorough restructuring of the financial system could prevent a return to crisis and pave the way for solid growth within the next 18 months.

India will support the Group of 20 leaders in their call for retiring subsidies on fossil fuels over "a period of time", but will refuse to commit a timeline.

The Canadian International Trade and Asia Pacific Gateway minister opened the Ahmedabad branch of the Canada Trade Office on Friday.

With the benefit of hindsight all of us are great investors. We precisely know that we should have begun to invest when the markets bottomed at the height of the panic last November. Our current reality though is that we are sitting on cash and hoping for a market correction, while equity markets seem to be scaling new heights.

US president Barack Obama today pledged to work with leaders of the G-20 countries to strengthen the rules governing financial markets and ensure that the global economic crisis that engulfed the world just a year ago does not happen again.

Chasing the 17,000 level, the Sensex rose 1.35 per cent on Wednesday to its highest close in almost 16 months, as signs of a US economic recovery added to the upbeat hopes for robust quarterly earnings.

Sterlite Industries sweetened its all-cash bid for US-based copper miner Asarco on Friday. The company said that it was ready to pay $2.565 billion after a bankruptcy court in Texas recommended rival Grupo Mexico's offer for the target company. Sterlite's modified offer, the third in two months, counters Groupo Mexico's bid of about $2.

Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) pumped another Rs 991 crore into Indian markets on Tuesday, taking the total investment in the last two days to Rs 2,000 crore.

Last Tuesday afternoon, a black Cadillac Escalade arrived at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in Lower Manhattan, built in the 1920s to resemble the Renaissance-era palaces of Florence, Italy.

The National Stock Exchange (NSE) has revised the charges payable by investors on per Rs 1 lakh of trade in the cash segment by up to 0.0005 per cent, or Rs 0.50. The move is expected to benefit investors and boost trade volumes on the exchange.

Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC) pushed for ending protectionism through financial regulation, re-organising the unfair distribution of quotas and rights at the IMF and the World Bank and reforming these two multilateral lending institutions, at the G-20 finance ministers' meet at London today.

Global steel tycoon Lakshmi Niwas Mittal made his MandA debut in India by picking up 20 per cent stake in the Rs 4,371-crore Uttam Galva Steel Ltd.

Competition watchdogs of BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) countries on Thursday sought co-operation in tackling cartels and anti-competitive agreements and said they would promote fair and free practices in the market by proper enforcement of competition laws.