Negative start to the week

Mon, 26 Oct Closing

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   Pre-Open   

   09:30 am   

   11:30 am   

   01:30 pm   

Profit booking in oil and gas, consumer durables, metal and PSU stocks led key indices in Indian equity markets to move below the dotted line in the afternoon session of trade. While the BSE-Sensex closed lower by 109 points, the NSE-Nifty closed lower by 35 points. The S&P BSE Midcap index and the S&P BSE Smallcap index too followed this trend and closed lower by 0.5% and 0.7% respectively. Gains were seen in capital goods and power sector.

Asian markets finished mixed as of the most recent closing prices. The Nikkei 225 gained 0.65% and the Shanghai Composite rose 0.50%. The Hang Seng lost 0.15%. European markets are mixed. The DAX is higher by 0.07%, while the CAC 40 and FTSE 100 are down 0.40% and 0.35% respectively. The rupee was trading at 64.96 against the US$ in the afternoon session.

According to a leading financial daily, IBM and Wipro have entered into a collaboration where Wipro will use the IBM Bluemix cloud development platform for the swift creation and deployment of mobile, analytics and machine learning solutions for clients around the world. Reportedly, Wipro has committed to train and engage 15,000 of its developers on the platform through a massive online open course across 58 countries. This team of developers will leverage Bluemix as a development platform, resulting in the introduction of new value-added services for the customers of Wipro through Wipro Analytics solutions.

Wipro will leverage more than 100 services through IBM's public Bluemix catalog as well as Bluemix Dedicated which is a private cloud version that developers can use to build apps involving sensitive data. Similarly, IBM will acquire Wipro's global talent pool to accelerate the release of new Bluemix features.

Wipro reported 7.22% YoY rise in its net profit at Rs 22.35 bn for the quarter ended September 30, 2015 as compared to Rs 20.84 bn for the same quarter in the previous year. Total income of the company increased by 6.97% YoY at Rs 131.86 bn for quarter under review as compared to Rs 123.26 bn for the quarter ended September 30, 2014.

Automobile stocks closed on a mixed note with Ashok Leyland and TVS Motors leading the losses. Shares of Maruti Suzuki finished the trading day in green after the company launched its new premium hatchback Baleno. Reportedly, the company and its suppliers have invested over Rs. 10.6 bn towards developing this model. Baleno will be manufactured in India and sold through NEXA, the new chain of premium exclusive automotive retail outlets recently launched by Maruti Suzuki.

The firm plans to export the model to over 100 countries. It will be manufactured at the company's Manesar plant. The company also plans to launch several models this fiscal and has set a target of achieving two million sales annually by 2020.

Maruti Suzuki posted a growth of 3.7% YoY in total sales in September 2015 as the company is seeing an improved growth in sales volume after a poor FY13 and FY14. The key reasons for a gradual pick-up in sales growth has been new product launches and diesel price deregulation which has benefitted the company as the falling gap between petrol and diesel prices has compelled consumers to favor petrol cars. In our recent edition of ‘5 Minute Wrap Up', we discussed the stock price of the company along with various segments that contributed to the growth of the company in last many quarters.