Mkts finish higher for 5th successive day

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Amidst much volatility in today's trading session, Indian equity markets closed in the green on firm global cues. Except IT and technology, all the other sectors closed the day in green today. Stocks from the automobiles, metals and realty pack were in favor today. The BSE-Sensex closed higher by 103 points and the NSE-Nifty was up by 25 points. Also, the BSE Mid Cap and the BSE Small Cap closed the day on a positive note and were up by 0.1% and 0.4% respectively.

Asian markets finished broadly higher today with shares in Hong Kong leading the region. The Hang Seng is up 3.13% while Japan's Nikkei 225 is up 0.75% and China's Shanghai Composite is up 0.48%. European markets too opened higher with shares in Germany leading the region. The rupee firmed up by 17 paise to quote at 65.24 against the US dollar in the afternoon session.

Banking stocks ended the trading day on a mixed note with Bank of India and PNB leading the gains. According to a leading financial daily, State Bank of India (SBI) and the German development bank KfW have signed a US$ 300 million loan agreement to support rural and micro-enterprise lending in the country. With a focus on agricultural and microenterprise loans, the facility is designed to further strengthen and extend SBI's priority sector lending activities. The bank will be on-lending these funds to underserved sectors, thereby contributing to the generation of growth, employment and income.

SBI chairperson Arundhati Bhattacharya recently made a pitch for re-introducing so-called teaser home loans to help boost demand for credit, four years after withdrawing such loans amid concern that they could hurt the asset quality of banks. Vivek Kaul, Co-Editor of The Daily Reckoning is of the opinion that teaser home loan rates are indeed a very bad idea and how teaser loans were a major reason behind the financial crisis that had started in the United States in September 2008. We also updated our view on SBI in the latest issue of StockSelect (Subscription required)

According to a leading financial daily, Tata Power's Strategic Engineering Division (Tata Power SED), and Secusmart, the global expert in secure mobile communications, have entered into a comprehensive partnership for the Indian market. The two companies have signed a term sheet (MoU) providing a framework for the collaboration, the aim of which is to evaluate the design, development and marketing of a highly secure mobile communications system tailored to the needs of Government customers in India. The proposed collaboration is aimed at leveraging Tata Power SED's expertise in security, software and hardware design and manufacturing and Secusmart's expertise in software and security to provide a highly capable and secure communication solution meeting stringent Government requirements.

Rahul Shah, Managing Editor of Microcap Millionaires recently expressed his views on Tata Power's performance in the June quarter of FY15 and outlined the challenges for the company in the medium term.