STOCK MARKETS ON 17th July 2009

Market snaps four-day losing streak

Frenzied buying in battered pivotals along with short covering after four straight days of catastrophic fall triggered a solid rally on the bourses today. Strong global markets and a savage cut in crude oil for the second straight day yesterday, 16 July 2008 triggered the rally. The market breadth was strong. Except metal stocks, shares from other sectors rose

Asian and European stocks rallied on Thursday, 17 July 2008 propelled by the biggest surge in US bank shares in 16 years and a sharp drop in oil prices, easing the worst fears about the global credit crisis spiralling out of control.

Political uncertainty will continue to weight on the market in the near term. The government is holding a two-day special session of parliament on 21 July 2008 and 22 July 2008 to seek vote of confidence after it was reduced to minority following withdrawal of support by Left parties on 8 July 2008. The government hopes to retain power due to backing from Samajwadi Party, a regional party in Uttar Pradesh.

The 30-share BSE Sensex surged 536.05 points or 4.26% at 13,111.85. The Sensex opened with a sharp 333.77 point upward gap at 12,909.57 and advanced further to touch a high of 13,150.35 in late trade. At the day's high, the Sensex surged 574.55 points. At the days low of 12,843.79 touched in mid-morning trade, the Sensex gained 267.99 points.

The broader based S&P CNX Nifty advanced 130.50 points or 3.42% at 3,947.20. Nifty July 2008 futures were at 3930.25, at a discount of 16.95 points as compared to spot closing.

The BSE Sensex shed 1350.44 points or 9.67% in four trading sessions to 12575.80 on 16 July 2008 from 13964.26 on 9 July 2008.

The BSE Sensex is down 7175.14 points or 35.36% in the calendar year 2008 so far from its close of 20,286.99 on 31 December 2007. It is 8094.92 points or 38.17% away from its all-time high of 21,206.77 struck on 10 January 2008.

The market breadth was strong on BSE with 1529 shares advancing as compared to 1092 that declined. 70 remained unchanged.

The BSE Mid-Cap index was up 1.32% to 5,155.34 and the BSE Small-Cap index rose 0.99% to 6,387.12. Both these indices underperformed the Sensex.

The total turnover on BSE amounted to Rs 4847 crore as compared to Rs 4,611.44 crore on Wednesday, 16 July 2008.

NSE's futures & options (F&O) segment turnover was Rs 46,300.96 crore, which was higher than Rs 45,738.28 crore on Wednesday, 16 July 2008.

Among the 30-member Sensex pack, 27 advanced while the rest declined

Indias largest real estate developer in terms of market capitalisation DLF galloped 10.93% to Rs 437 on 20.58 lakh shares. It was the top gainer from the Sensex pack.

Auto shares advanced on fresh buying. Indias top small car maker in terms of sales Maruti Suzki India surged 9.52% to Rs 600. Mahindra & Mahindra (up 4.31% to Rs 514.95), Hero Honda Motors (up 2.89% to Rs 657.20), and Tata Motors (up 3.44% to Rs 409), rose

Indias largest private sector firm by market capitalization and oil refiner Reliance Industries rose 4.15% at Rs 2026.15 on 11.07 lakh shares. The stock moved in a range of Rs 2030 and Rs 1965 so far during the day.

Capital goods heavyweights advanced. Indias largest engineering & construction company in terms of order book position Larsen & Toubro jumped 8.11% to Rs 2454.50. The stock is trading 1:1 cum bonus.

Indias largest power equipment maker in terms of sales Bharat Heavy Electricals advanced 5.75% to Rs 1460.50.

India's largest dedicated housing finance company in terms of operating income HDFC vaulted 9.38% to Rs 1881.8. The company reported 25.56% rise in net profit to Rs 468.11 crore on a 26.67% increase in total income to Rs 2318.62 crore in Q1 June 2008 over Q1 June 2007. The results were announced during trading hours yesterday, 16 July 2008.

HDFC chairman Deepak Parekh yesterday denied rumors that Citigroup may sell its 11.74% stake in HDFC to Oman Investment Corporation.

Banking shares witnessed across-the-board rally ahead of the inflation data to be released after market hours today. HDFC Bank (up 5.57% to Rs 955.50), State Bank of India (up 9.33% to Rs 1245), and ICICI Bank (up 6.92% to Rs 555.55), also gained.

Mid-cap banks, Kotak Mahindra Bank (up 4.26% to Rs 465), Axis Bank (up 10.02% to Rs 643), Union Bank of India (up 7.89% to Rs 108), Bank of India (up 7.31% to Rs 243.65), also joined the rally.

Starting this week the government will inflation data every Thursday at 17:00 IST instead of mid-day every Friday.

Indias largest cellular services provider in terms of market capitalisation Bharati Airtel advanced 1.87% to Rs 744, Reliance Communications, the countrys second largest cellular services provider in terms of market capitalisation rose 4.66% to Rs 417.90.

Two oil exploration heavyweights saw divergent trend. Oil & Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) soared 4.22% to Rs 902.90 while Cairn India lost 3.77% to Rs 215.90

Indias largest cigarette manufacturer in terms of sales ITC gained 3.51% to Rs 168. As per recent reports Amar Singh, whose Samajwadi Party is the key to the survival of the ruling Congress-led UPA Government wants the Unit Trust of India (UTI) and other public financial institutions to divest their stake in ITC in favour of British American Tobacco (BAT). Public financial institutions have a combined 37.62% (as at end March 2008) holding in ITC, which includes 11.90% of UTI and 13.65% of Life Insurance Corporation of India.

IT pivotals rallied. TCS surged 6.83% to Rs 773 after the company reported 8.58% rise in net profit to Rs 1204.01 crore on a 5.99% increase in total income to Rs 5321.88 crore in Q1 June 2008 over Q4 March 2007. The results were declared after market hours yesterday, 16 July 2008.

Infosys Technologies (up 2.25% to Rs 1581), Satyam Computer Services (up 5.26% to Rs 415.25), and Wipro (up 2.36% to Rs 380), edged higher from IT pack.

Reliance Infrastructure (up 4.67% to Rs 801.25), Jaiprakash Associates (up 9.34% to Rs 149.25), were the other gainers from Sensex pack.

Indias largest pharma company in terms of sales Ranbaxy Laboratories was the top loser from the Sensex pack. The stock slumped 3.89% to Rs 452.40 on profit booking after surging 15.03% to Rs 470.70 yesterday, 16 July 2008. The counter saw high volumes of 69.68 lakh shares. The stock surged wildly in a range of Rs 494.40 and Rs 431 today.

The stock galloped after the company's chief executive Malvinder Singh yesterday, 16 July 2008 said in a televised conference that the deal with Japan's Daiichi Sankyo remains on track. He also said that the firm would provide all information required for a probe by the US authorities within the next month.

Steel stocks extended early losses on reports the government may consider setting up a price band for steel products to control inflation. Tata Steel (down 2.91% to Rs 607.50), Sail (down 6.29% to Rs 119.20), and Kalyani Steel (down 1.05% to Rs 146), declined from steel sector.

Besides metal stocks like Sterlite Industries (down 5.69% to Rs 608), National Aluminium Company (down 4.78% to Rs 336.50), and Hinstan Zinc (down 0.02% to Rs 527.80) were not spared either.

Ranbaxy Laboratories was the top traded counter on BSE with turnover of Rs 316.39 crore followed by Reliance Petroleum (Rs 288.68 crore), Reliance Capital (Rs 243.26 crore), Reliance Industries (Rs 221.65 crore), and Larsen & Toubro (Rs 176.10 crore), in that order.

Reliance Petroleum led the volumes chart notching volumes of 1.92 crore shares followed by Reliance Natural Resources (1.56 crore shares), IFCI (1.45 crore shares), Ispat Industries (1.05 crore shares) and Chambal Fertilisers (89.55 lakh shares), in that order.

State run oil-marketing companies extended yesterday gains after sharp fall in crude oil prices for the second straight day yesterday, 16 July 2008. Hindustan Petroleum Corporation (up 5.10% to Rs 207.95), Bharat Petroleum Corporation (up 7.74% to Rs 272.10)

A brief history of Olympics

The Ancient Olympic Games

Although the ancient Olympic games were first recorded in 776 BC, they originated at least a century before that and possibly as early as the 13th century BC.

One Greek legend said that the great Herakles (Hercules, in the Roman form) won a race at Olympia, a plain in the small state of Elis, and then decreed that the race should be re-enacted every four years. Another said that Zeus himself had originated the festival after defeating Cronus for the sovereignty of heaven.

Olympic Gymnasium 776 BC

The more likely story is that the Olympic festival was a local religious event until 884 BC, when Iphitus, the king of Elis, decided to turn it into a broader, pan-Hellenic festival. To accomplish that, he entered into a temporary truce with other rulers, allowing athletes and others to travel peacefully to Olympia while the festival was going on.

The Greeks based their chronology on four-year periods called Olympiads, and the Olympic festival marked the beginning of each Olympiad. Evidently, the festival was reorganized in 776 BC, which was considered the start of the first Olympiad.

The festival was basically a religious gathering to celebrate the gods worshipped in common by all Hellenes, primarily Zeus. There were three other major pan-Hellenic festivals, the Pythian, the Nemean, and the Isthmian, all of which included fairs, but the festival at Olympia became pre-eminent by 572 BC, when Elis and Sparta entered into an alliance under which Elis was in charge of the event itself while Sparta enforced the sacred truce.

A single foot race was the only athletic event until the fifteenth Olympiad. The race was the length of the stadium, approximately 200 yards. As time went on, the games associated with the festival expanded and became increasingly important. A race of two stadium lengths was added in 724 and a long-distance race of 24 stadium lengths (about 2.5 miles) was added in 720.

Other types of sports followed quickly: Wrestling and the pentathlon in 708, boxing in 688, chariot racing in 680, and the pancratium, a combination of boxing and wrestling, in 748. At one time or another, there were 23 Olympic sports events, although they were never all held at the same festival.

Greek Chariot Racing

A branch of wild olive was the only official prize for an Olympic winner, but there were also usually some unofficial prizes awarded by his city-state. For example, Athens allowed an Olympic champion to live free of charge in the Pyrtaneum, a special hall set aside for distinguished citizens. Other city-states exempted winners from taxes for an Olympiad, and in some cases citizens contributed to a cash award.

Athletes had to arrive in Elis a month before the games to undergo spiritual, moral, and physical training under the supervision of the judges, who then decided which of them were genuinely qualified to compete. Each competitor had to swear an oath that he was a free-born Greek who had committed no sacrilege against the gods.

At first, the games took up only one day of the festival. That was extended to two days in 680, with the addition of chariot racing, and to five days in 632. However, only three of those days were actually devoted to competition. The first day was devoted to religious sacrifices, the registration of athletes, and the taking of the Olympic oath. Prizes were awarded and thanksgiving sacrifices were offered on the fifth day.

Athletes usually competed nude. They originally wore shorts but, according to one ancient writer, Pausanias, a competitor deliberately lost his shorts so that he could run more freely during the race in 720 BC, and clothing was then abolished.

Women were not allowed to watch the games, but that had nothing to do with the nudity of the male athletes. Rather, it was because Olympia was dedicated to Zeus and was therefore a sacred area for men. The chariot races, which were held outside the sacred precinct, were open to women spectators. (Women had their own sacred festivals from which men were banned, most notably the Heraean festival at Argos, which included a javelin throwing competition.)

Olympic coin

At its peak during the 4th century BC, the Olympic festival drew crowds not only from the Pelopponesian Peninsula but from colonies as far away as Libya and Egypt. Poets and other writers recited spontaneously, sculptors worked on statues while surrounded by spectators, vendors sold food from stalls, traders from throughout the peninsula sold horses.

Traveling to Olympia took on the nature of a pilgrimage, which attracted some of the greatest names of Greece's classic period. Plato attended the festival when he was seventy. Demosthenes, Diogenes the Cynic, Pythagoras, and Themistocles all visited Olympia at one time or another. The young Thucydides was in the audience when Herodotus, the "father of history," read from his works.

Even after the glory that was Greece vanished, the Olympics lived on, but in a debased form under the Romans, who replaced the traditional games with their own gladiatorial contests, in which slaves replaced free-born Greeks as the competitors.

In 394 AD, Theodosius the Great decreed an end to the Olympic Games. But they had lasted more than a thousand years, perhaps as long as 1600 years, and certainly longer than any other secular institution in history. And they left behind an ember that was to burst again into flame in the late 19th century.

The 19th-Century Olympic Movement

Baron Pierre de Coubertin, a Frenchman, is justly given credit for establishing the modern Olympics, but it was England that revived the idea, and it was in England that Coubertin was introduced to it.

As early as 1612, Robert Dover established an English version of the Olympic Games in the Cotswold Hills in Gloucestershire. Events included card games, chess, and dancing, as well as running, jumping, the hammer throw, pitching the bar, wrestling, and horse racing.

Michael Johnston

During the 18th century, students at Cambridge University staged some kind of Olympic Games, but it's not known exactly when they were held or what sports were involved, if any.

The Olympic idea was definitely in the air in 19th-century England. The Baron de Berenger held an Olympic Festival at Chelsea Stadium in London in 1832. To commemorate Queen Victoria's coronation, he staged another festival in 1838, which included archery, gymnastics, cricket, fencing, rowing, sailing, and target shooting with both rifle and pistol.

By far the most important of such events was the annual Olympic festival at Much Wenlock, Shropshire, which began in 1850. William "Penny" Brooke, a life-long campaigner for physical education, organized the games, which included cricket, hurdling, jumping, quoits, running, and soccer.

The Much Wenlock Games were originally designed for youngsters--there was an even a race for children under seven--but they eventually grew to include older athletes. They also drew some attention from Europe and the German Gymnastics Society began sending a team to England to compete in various events.

In 1861, Brooke organized the Shropshire Olympian Association, which led to the founding of the National Olympian Association four years later. Brooke's goal was to create an international Olympics, primarily to promote physical education in participating countries.

Brooke never achieved that goal. But, in 1890, he was visited by Coubertin, who was eager to learn about the Much Wenlock games and the Olympian Society, and Brooke was very helpful to the young Frenchman who shared his interest in physical education and his dream of an international Olympic festival.

Pierre le Coubertin

Born in 1863, Coubertin had grown up in the shadow of his country's devastating defeat in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71. He decided that France had lost the war due to physical and spiritual flabbiness caused primarily by poor educational methods.

A boxer, fencer, and rower as a young man, Coubertin determined to devote his life to education and, especially, to physical education. His ideas fit in exactly with England's "muscular Christianity" movement, which espoused moral and intellectual development based on physical fitness.

Coubertin visited England several times to see first-hand how sport was used in public schools, and he also traveled to the United States with the same goal. In 1889, he organized the Congress of Physical Education in Paris and the following year he made his visit to Much Wenlock to talk to "Penny" Brooke about the Olympian Society.

The idea of reviving the Olympics as a true international festival grew out of that meeting. Coubertin began openly espousing the idea in 1892, but attracted little notice. Despite repeated rebuffs, not only from his own countrymen but from the English and the Americans as well, Coubertin persisted. On June 23, 1894, he presided over a meeting of 79 delegates, representing 12 countries, who unanimously voted for the restoration of the Olympic games.

As a result, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) was organized, with the goal of staging the first modern Olympics in Paris in 1900. Pressed by Coubertin, the IOC soon decided to aim for 1896, with Athens as the site.

That idea, too, met with resistance, especially from the government of Greece. But when Georgios Averoff of Alexandria donated 920,000 gold drachmas to build an Olympic stadium in Athens, the resistance folded, and the King of Greece himself opened the first modern Olympic Games on April 5, 1896 (March 24 on the Greek calendar).

To the traditional events of track and field athletics, which include the decathlon and heptathlon, have been added a host of games and sports—archery, badminton, baseball and softball, basketball, boxing, canoeing and kayaking, cycling, diving, equestrian contests, fencing, field hockey, gymnastics, judo and taekwondo, the modern pentathlon, rowing, sailing, shooting, soccer, swimming, table tennis, team (field) handball, tennis, trampoline, the triathlon, volleyball, water polo, weight lifting, and wrestling.

Fanny Blanker-Koen

Olympic events for women made their first appearance in 1912. A separate series of winter Olympic meets, inaugurated (1924) at Chamonix, France, now includes ice hockey, curling, bobsledding, luge, skeleton, and skiing, snowboarding, and skating events. Since 1994 the winter games have been held in even-numbered years in which the summer games are not contested. Until late in the 20th cent. the modern Olympics were open only to amateurs, but the governing bodies of several sports now permit professionals to compete as well.

As a visible focus of world energies, the Olympics have been prey to many factors that thwarted their ideals of world cooperation and athletic excellence. As in ancient Greece, nationalistic fervor has fostered intense rivalries that at times threatened the survival of the games. Although officially only individuals win Olympic medals, nations routinely assign political significance to the feats of their citizens and teams. Between 1952 and 1988 rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union, rooted in mutual political antagonism, resulted in each boycotting games hosted by the other (Moscow, 1980; Los Angeles, 1984).

Politics has influenced the Olympic games in other ways, from the propaganda of the Nazis in Berlin (1936) to pressures leading to the exclusion of white-ruled Rhodesia from the Munich games (1972). At Munich, nine Israeli athletes were kidnapped and murdered by Palestinian terrorists. The International Olympic Committee (IOC), which sets and enforces Olympic policy, has struggled with the licensing and commercialization of the games, the need to schedule events to accommodate American television networks (whose broadcasting fees help underwrite the games), and the monitoring of athletes who seek illegal competitive advantages, often through the use of performance-enhancing drugs. The IOC itself has also been the subject of controversy.

In 1998 a scandal erupted with revelations that bribery and favoritism had played a role in the awarding of the 2002 Winter Games to Salt Lake City, Utah, and in the selection of some earlier venues. As a result, the IOC instituted a number of reforms including, in 1999, initiating age and term limits for members and barring them from visiting cities bidding to be Olympic sites.

Using Gmail Account to store files

There is a nice hack out there which you can use on your GMail account to store files [such as mp3, power point, PDFs, ZIP etc]. The only limitation is that you can not upload a file larger than 10Megs in size and also that you will not see a classic windows explorer kind of interface for the uploaded files inside GMail since all the files that you upload are stored as email attachments. However, after installing a shell extension in your system, you can access all the uploaded files in the same way you access file and folders in other system drives [such as a USB drive].

Sounds interesting? Let’s first begin with the installation.

Step# 1 - Download and install the GMail Drive Shell Extension from [Softpedia] or check the [Author's site] for more download locations. You may have to restart your system for the changes to take effect.

Step# 2 - After reboot, double click “My Computer“, and check to see if ‘GMail Drive‘ shows up. If you see the drive, it means that your installation was successful. If not, please re-install the shell extension and reboot the system.

Step# 3 - To login and start uploading files to your GMail account, double click on ‘GMail Drive’ in ‘My Computer’ and login to your GMail account. [On a shared computer do not set auto-login]. You can right click and select ‘Login As’ to login as a different User.

Step# 4 - Post login, you will see an empty drive. To create a new folder, right click and select New->Folder. Double click on the folder and then either create a subfolder or just ‘Copy-Paste’ or ‘Drag & Drop’ a file into it. That’s it! You have discovered a new way of using GMail, to store your files. That’s why I love GMail.

Please note that, an uploaded file/folder has a prefix of GMAILFS when you see them in GMail. I recommend that you create a label called ‘MyFiles’ and label all such emails [uploaded files in fact] so that you do not confuse them with other emails.

To check the current usage of your GMail drive, right click on the driver letter and select properties.

Now that you know how to use your 2GB of storage in GMail to store your important files, go ahead and upload all those important certificates, mp3s, spredsheets, documents, PDFs etc.

Happy Uploading!

HDFC Earnings

HDFC Q1 net profit up at Rs 468.11 cr

Jul 16, 2008 at 03.32 PM

HDFC has announced its first quarter results. The company's Q1 stanalone net profit was up 25.5% at Rs 468.11 crore versus Rs 372.81 crore,YoY.

Its standalone revenues were up 26.91% at Rs 2,313.48 crore versus Rs 1,826.95 crore, YoY.

Its other income of Rs 3.44 crore versus Rs 5.14 crore.

Stock Market News

The key benchmark indices suffered losses for the fourth straight day on unabated selling pressure in blue-chip stocks. This was despite a firm start triggered by a sharp fall in crude oil prices yesterday, 15 July 2008. Both the barometer indices BSE Sensex and S&P CNX Nifty registered fresh 15-month low. Volatility was the hallmark of todays trade. The market breadth was weak. Real estate stocks crashed. Ranbaxy Labs was the star of the day, galloping over 15% on high volumes.

Global cues were mixed. European markets, which opened after Indian market, slipped after firm start. Asian markets, which opened before Indian market, were mixed.

Crude oil prices declined sharply on Tuesday, 15 July 2008. On the New York Mercantile Exchange, August crude settled down $6.44, or 4.44%, at $138.74 a barrel yesterday, 15 July 2008.

Political uncertainty will continue to weight on the Indian market in the near term. The government is holding a two-day special session of parliament on 21 July 2008 and 22 July 2008 to seek vote of confidence after it was reduced to minority following withdrawal of support by Left parties on 8 July 2008. The government hopes to retain power due to backing from Samajwadi Party, a regional party in Uttar Pradesh.

The 30-share BSE Sensex was down 100.39 points or 0.79% to 12,575.80. It touched a fresh 15-month low of 12,514.02 in mid-afternoon trade. At the days low the Sensex lost 162.17 points. The Sensex opened with 133.74 point upward gap at 12,809.93 and advanced further to touch a high of 12,935.25 in mid-morning trade. At the day's high, the Sensex rose 259.06 points.

The broader based S&P CNX Nifty was down 44.4 points or 1.15% at 3816.70. Nifty hit a 15-month low of 3,790.20 in intra-day trade. Nifty July 2008 futures were at 3821.20, at a premium of 4.50 points as compared to spot closing.

The BSE Sensex is down 7711.19 points or 38.01% in the calendar year 2008 so far from its close of 20,286.99 on 31 December 2007. It is 8630.97 points or 40.69% away from its all-time high of 21,206.77 struck on 10 January 2008.

BSE clocked a tunover of Rs 4557 crore today as compared to Rs 4,304.08 crore on Tuesday, 15 July 2008. NSE's futures & options (F&O) segment turnover was Rs 45,738.28 crore, which was higher than Rs 44,122.92 crore on Tuesday, 15 July 2008.

The BSE Mid-Cap index slipped 1.46% to 5,088.28 and the BSE Small-Cap index fell 1.66% to 6,324.45. Both these indices underperformed the Sensex.

The market breadth was weak on BSE with 1788 shares declining as compared to 827 that advanced. 75 remained unchanged.

Most sectoral indices on BSE settled with losses. The BSE Realty index (down 6.31% at 4,219.12), BSE Auto (down 2.38% at 3,394.49), BSE Oil & Gas index (down 1.03% to 8,588.39), BSE PSU index (down 1.19% to 5,752.70), BSE Consumer Durables index (down 2.23% to 3,391.23), BSE Health Care index (up 1.59% at 3,971.41), BSE Metal index (down 2.37% to 11,935.92), BSE Bankex (down 1.96% at 5,400.24), underperformed the Sensex.

The BSE Capital Goods index (down 0.15% at 10,160.53), BSE Power (down 0.65% to 2,209.88), BSE TecK index (down 0.17% to 2,784.50), BSE FMCG index (up 0.85% to 1,897.46), and BSE IT index (down 0.63% to 3,566.98), outperformed the Sensex.

Among the 30-member Sensex pack, 18 declined while the rest them gained.

Indias largest pharma company in terms of sales Ranbaxy Laboratories was the star of the days trading session. The stock galloped 15.10% to Rs 471.05 on high volumes of 69.90 lakh shares after the company's chief executive Malvinder Singh said in a televised conference that the deal with Japan's Daiichi Sankyo remains on track. He also said that the firm would provide all information required for a probe by the US authorities within the next month. It was the top gainer from Sensex pack.

Ranbaxy shares tumbled nearly 23% in last two trading sessions to Rs 409.25 on 15 July 2008 from Rs 531.45 on 11 July 2008 on concerns a US probe may impact Ranbaxy's latest deal with Daiichi Sankyo. US government has filed a motion, seeking certain documents from Ranbaxy over doubts of it indulging in alleged malpractices like concealing and forging crucial data to get marketing approval for its products in the US.

Telecom duo saw divergent trend. While Indias largest cellular services provider in terms of market capitalisation Bharati Airtel advanced 2.68% to Rs 729, Reliance Communications, the countrys second largest cellular services provider in terms of market capitalisation lost 1.13% to Rs 401.50.

Two oil exploration heavyweights saw divergent trend. Oil & Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) gained 2.60% to Rs 867 while Cairn India lost 3.96% to Rs 226.50

Indias largest cigarette manufacturer in terms of sales ITC gained 2.43% to Rs 164.05. As per reports Amar Singh, whose Samajwadi Party is the key to the survival of the ruling Congress-led UPA Government wants the Unit Trust of India (UTI) and other public financial institutions to divest their stake in ITC in favour of British American Tobacco (BAT). Public financial institutions have a combined 37.62% (as at end March 2008) holding in ITC, which includes 11.90% of UTI and 13.65% of Life Insurance Corporation of India.

Indias largest engineering and construction company in terms of order book Larsen & Toubro (L&T) gained 0.51% to Rs 2291.10 on reports the company plans to form a Rs 2000-crore forging venture with Nuclear Power Corporation of India (NPCIL).

Bharat Heavy Electricals, the countrys largest power equipment maker in terms of sales, was up 1.31% to Rs 1390 on reports the company is in talks with Reliance Industries and Oil & Natural Gas Corporation to build offshore oil rigs.

Hindustan Unilever (up 2.53% to Rs 217), Ambuja Cements (up 1.43% to Rs 81.35), and Reliance Infrastructure (up 1.05% to Rs 755.50), edged higher from Sensex pack.

Indias largest private sector firm by market capitalization and oil refiner Reliance Industries shed 1.10% at Rs 1955.10 on 15.51 lakh shares. The stock moved in a range of Rs 2024.90 and Rs 1922.50 during the day.

Real estate stocks cracked on renewed selling pressure. Indias largest real estate developer DLF lost 7.48% to Rs 395 on 22.13 lakh shares. It was the top loser from Sensex pack.

Unitech (down 10.68% to Rs 137.15), Sobha Developers (down 4.51% to Rs 229.55), Omaxe (down 5.55% to Rs 115.55), Ansal Infrastructures (down 4.16% to Rs 82.35), and Anant Raj Industries (down 2.95% to Rs 119), were the other losers from the realty pack.

India's largest software services provider TCS lost 3.16% to Rs 726 ahead of its Q1 June 2008 results due today. The stock had hit a high of Rs 769 in early trade. The stock also hit an all time low of Rs 719.10 in intra-day trade.

Other IT pivotals were mixed. Satyam Computer Services (down 0.49% to Rs 396.25), and Wipro (down 1.16% to Rs 373.55) fell.

However India's second largest software services provider Infosys staged a solid recovery from days low of Rs 1527.35 to settle 0.65% at Rs 1554.10

Auto stocks dropped despite a sharp fall in crude oil yesterday, 15 July 2008. Tata Motors (down 1.72% to Rs 397.05), Mahindra & Mahindra (down 5.55% to Rs 493), Hero Honda Motors (down 2.38% to Rs 638), and Bajaj Auto (down 5.16% to Rs 455), slipped from auto pack.

Among the metal pack, National Aluminium Company (down 5.55% to Rs 354), Hindalco Industries (down 0.55% to Rs 137.15), Sesa Goa (down 5.25% to Rs 2746.25), Sail (down 2.87% to Rs 128.50), and Tata Steel (down 2.08% to Rs 633.55), slipped.

India's largest dedicated housing finance company in terms of operating income HDFC fell 3.92% to Rs 1729.70 after the company reported 25.56% rise in net profit to Rs 468.11 crore on a 26.67% increase in total income to Rs 2318.62 in Q1 June 2008 over Q1 June 2007. The stock hit a low of 1690, a 52-week low.

Banking shares extended yesterdays losses. HDFC Bank down 0.70% to Rs 910

I start today on the journey of blogging !!!!!