Choppy Sensex drifts lower; SBI, Bharti, RIL extend losses

Indian shares drifted lower with marginal losses due to further selling in Bharti Airtel, State Bank of India and Reliance Industries. Capital goods and banks stocks too were under pressure while the buying in FMCG, power, technology majors and Coal India capped the downside.

The BSE benchmark was down 55.46 points to 17,545.10 and the NSE benchmark fell 17.30 points to 5,320.70.

Country's largest telecom operator Bharti Airtel extended losses to 5.7% from 4% in afternoon trade as investors disappointed with the first quarter perfomance of telecom leader. Company expects the possibility of further fall in EBITDA margin.

Top lender State Bank of India tanked nearly 4% after the weak industrial output data in June. Market experts feel the Reserve Bank of India may not cut policy rates in the September policy, even after disappointing data. PNB declined 1% and Axis Bank was down 0.5% whereas HDFC Bank gained 0.8%. Housing finance company plunged 3%.

Index heavyweight Reliance Industries dropped 1.5%. Top commercial vehicle maker Tata Motors (ahead of Q1 results today) and private oil & gas producer Cairn India (as Rahul Dhir will step down at MD and CEO with effect from August 31) tanked nearly 3%.

State-owned oil retailer BPCL tumbled 2.7% ahead of numbers of its peers HPCL and IOC today. Ranbaxy Labs declined 1.5% ahead of Q1 earnings today.

Coal India, country's largest coal mining company, gained more than 2%. Sterlite Industries topped the buying list with gains of 3.6%.

FMCG majors ITC and HUL were up 1.3% and 2%, respectively. Top software services exporter TCS rose 0.8%.

Utility vehicle maker Mahindra & Mahindra rallied over 2% following a rally of 4% yesterday after strong numbers in Q1.

Money Control news

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Research reveals the motivation behind our love of horror

IT'S terrifying. It's horrible. It's unavoidable. A new study reveals our love of horror is deeply burnt into our DNA.

Terror. Disgust. Fear. It seems odd that we would deliberately place ourselves in a theatre, knowing full well we're about to be shocked to the core.

But a research paper by a PhD student in Denmark shows we may have an ingrained urge to learn how to adapt to stressful situations.

This motivation, buried deep within our survival instincts, emerges in force at the prospect of a new, fearful situation, Mathias Clasen of Aarhus University reports.

Thus the appeal of horror movies, books, comics and theatre - even though we're unlikely to run into a lion or human carcass on the way to the supermarket

"When our ancestors lived as hunter-gatherers in the East African savannah, it was important that they were prepared for possible attacks by predators and vermin," Clasen said.

"They had to train their reactions to stressful situations, and the desire to do so became stored in their DNAwhich we still carry today. When we watch a horror movie, we're satisfying that desire. We're training our danger preparedness."


The chestburster scene from 'Alien'. We have an ingrained desire to learn how to adapt to stressful situations, motivating our love of horror in all its forms.

Clasen takes his idea further, examining the specific fascination we have with zombies.

Our hunter-gatherer ancestors learnt early on to fear rotting corpses due to their association with disease, he said. Combine this with the basic fear of being eaten, and you have a double-barrelled fear whammy.

"It's actually just like other mammals young, who fight for fun because it makes evolutionary sense later on in life when they will need to fight to the death ... We use fiction as an 'emotional simulator' to broaden our horizons," he said. "Horror fiction exercises our reactions to what's terrible and frightening."

Clasen analysed numerous horror movies and books to extract the
essence of terror common to them all. But, beyond teeth, creepy crawlies and decay, he identified many cultural, temporary fears.

Not everything is based on biological impulses, it would seem.

"Of course there is also a cultural aspect to our understanding of horror. It is, for example, necessary to understand the language in which Dracula is written. And a film like The Exorcist was made at a special time when some specific problems were debated," he says.
"The mother loses grip on her daughter, and thats a parable on other things that occurred in society. In order to understand this, we need to know about Western culture in the 70s'

Now, it is time for Clasen to turn his hypothesis into a full-blown theory.

"I would, for instance, like to see if the brains of people from different cultures react uniformly to the same scene in a horror movie," he said. "If they do, that would support my theory."

He did not specify whether the brains still had to be attached to their parent body...
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Bank staff threaten two-day strike from August 22

The All India [ Images ] Bank Employees' Association (AIBEA), which represents the employees of the public-sector banks, has threatened to go on a two-day strike from August 22, against the government's proposed Banking Bill, closure of rural branches and other set of banking sector reforms.

In a circular to the members, C H Venkatachalam, general secretary, AIBEA, said "the attacks are increasing and the IBA/government are indifferent to our demands. Hence UFBU has given the call to revive the agitation and struggle programmes.

Further, the government is also proposing to amend the banking laws during the current session of Parliament. UFBU has therefore, decided that they should be ready for instant protest strike in such an eventuality".

"...a bipartite meeting between the IBA and UFBU on July 24, 2012 was held as per the advice of the Deputy CLC. While we have explained all our demands to the IBA in detail and emphasised the need for an amicable solution to the issues, the IBA has remained unresponsive till date. In view of this, as decided in UFBU meeting held after our discussions with the IBA, we have served the strike notice on IBA," read the circular.

The main issues include settlement of pending demands, stopping arbitary guidelines of human resource issues, stopping unilateral implementation of Khandelwal Committee Recommendations, a freeze on outsourcing of bank jobs, a hold over banking sector reforms and non-closure of rural branches.

"It is also learnt that in the ensuing monsoon session of Parliament, the government is proposing to get the Banking Law Amendment Bill passed. The proposed amendments to the Banking Regulations Act and Bank Nationalisation Act are unwarranted and aimed at further de-regulating and liberalising the banking sector with increasing voting rights for foreign and corporate investors, etc.

Hence, as decided in our last meeting, all our unions and members are ready for an instant strike if the government would suddenly bring the Bill for consideration by Parliament," said Venkatachalam.
rediff news
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'Pak increasing its nuclear arsenal to counter India'

Primarily aimed at India, Pakistan is making qualitative and quantitative improvements to its nuclear arsenal and "could increase the number of circumstances under which it would be willing to use nuclear weapons," a Congressional report has said.

"Pakistan appears to be increasing its fissile production capability and improving its delivery vehicles in order to hedge against possible increases in India's nuclear arsenal.

"Islamabad may also accelerate its current nuclear weapons efforts," the independent Congressional Research Service (CRS) said in a report.

In addition to making qualitative and quantitative improvements to its nuclear arsenal, Pakistan could increase the number of circumstances under which it would be willing to use nuclear weapons, the report said.

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Bharti Falls To Two-Year Low On Goldman Downgrade: Mumbai Mover

Bharti India's largest mobile operator, fell to its lowest level in more than two years in Mumbai trading after brokerages including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. downgraded the company on concerns about rising expenses.
Bharti fell as much as 4.7 percent to 261.40 rupees, the lowest intraday level since July 2010, and changed hands at 263.60 rupees as of 10:05 a.m. The stock was the biggest loser on the benchmark Sensitive Index (SENSEX), which rose 0.3 percent. The New Delhi-based phone operator plunged 6.6 percent yesterday after reporting earnings that missed analysts’ estimates.
Goldman Sachs and Standard Chartered Plc cut their ratings on expectation the company will have to boost promotion costs as it seeks to grow market share in India and Africa. Bharti, controlled by billionaire Chairman Sunil Mittal, said yesterday that telecommunications revenue in India were depressed because of “hyper-competition” and higher network costs.
“The disappointment was more on costs, than on revenue,” Standard Chartered analysts Rahul Singh and Saurav Anand said in a note dated yesterday. The bank lowered its rating to in-line from outperform and reduced the price target to 274.35 rupees from 300 rupees.
Bharti’s profit will see an impact from competition for the next 12 to 15 months, compared with the six to nine months predicted earlier, the analysts wrote in the note.
Price cuts and promotions offered by the company to maintain and regain market share in India will spur “aggressive responses” from competitors, wrote Sachin Salgaonkar, an analyst at Goldman Sachs, in a note to clients yesterday. He cut his rating to neutral from buy, adding that Bharti’s “aggressive spend” will affect its Ebitda margins and profitability.
Bloomberg news
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OUR BUY CALL 09-08-12

OUR BUY CALL JUBFOOD, M&M, AND HERONOTOCO IS FIRE IN FIRST HRS.
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June IIP contracts 1.8% on weak investment, falling exports

India’s factory output, measured by the index of industrial production (IIP), contracted -1.8 per cent in June 2012 from the same period in the past fiscal, against expectations of 1 per cent growth.

The figure for May has been revised to 2.5 per cent from 2.4 per cent. Forecasts ranged from a decline of 2.7 per cent to a rise of 2.5 per cent.

Manufacturing, which constitutes about 76 per cent of industrial production, shrank to -3.2 per cent from a year earlier, data showed. The biggest drag, however, was capital goods, which slumped to -28 per cent.

The decline in IIP was partly on account of the high base effect.
"-1.8 per cent has to be read in terms of significant base effect. Capital goods are clearly the significant driver in terms of taking the growth in the negative territory... even sequentially the momentum has been slowing," Dr. Shubhada Rao, chief economist at YES Bank told NDTV Profit.

Shares in power equipment manufacturer BHEL and engineering and construction firm L&T saw selling pressure after a sharp decline in capital goods production.

The deceleration suggests that the economy remains on a slowing course and the pickup in the pace of factory production in May following a contraction the previous month may have been a blip.

Industrial output accounts for a little over 15 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) and the consensus points to more weakness ahead for the Indian economy, which grew at its lowest annual rate in almost a decade, just 5.3 per cent in the quarter to March.
NDTV NEWS
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