Sensex in red, CESC, Firstsource plunge; Zee News down on Jindal sting

Indian markets open in the red ahead of the RBI meeting next week.The Sensex opened 40 points lower at 18713.49 while the Nifty opened below 5700 as Future and Options expiry day on Thursday witnessed range bound movement and mixed activity across stocks.

Technical analyst Sudarshan Sukhani of s2analytics.com sees no early signs of the Nifty breaking out in the November series. “Yesterday’s price action in the Nifty gives nothing to us in terms of indication,” he said in an interview to CNBC-TV18.

Asian indices are moving in and out of positive zone as earnings of companies like Yamaha have disappointed. US stocks gained modestly. Corporate earnings have not improved sentiment but economic data has been encouraging.

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UK’s gross domestic product grew 1% in the third quarter; in other words its economy can be termed as out of recession.

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Standard and Poor’s downgraded three French banks BNP Paribas, Banque Solfea and Cofidis; increased economic risks that leave them more exposed to a protracted recession in the eurozone have been cited as the reasons.

In India, investors have clearly given the Sanjay Goenka deal with Firstsource a thumbs down. While CESC shares are down 12.4 percent, Firstsource is down 9 percent.

M&M shares are up more than 1 percent after it reported a 22 percent in July-September profit on Thursday, beating analyst estimates. UBS has upgraded Mahindra & Mahindra( to ‘buy’ from ’neutral’ citing a “strong” outlook for profit margins despite falling tractor sales, as well as increased demand for utility vehicles.

PNB slipped 1.5 percent ahead of second quarter earnings today. Indian Express reported that PNB lead consortium failed to recover Rs 2,700 crore from Zoom Developers.

Gadkari-linked IRB Infrastructure shed another 1.5 percent. Apollo Tyres declined 0.8 percent as its Vadodara plant is shut post labour strike.

Zee News is down 4.3 percent at Rs 14 after after Naveen Jindal, chairman of Jindal Steel and Power (JSPL) and Congress leader from Haryana, on Thursday alleged the Subhash Chandra-promoted news broadcaster Zee News tried to blackmail his company and extort money. Jindal played video clips to a packed media gathering in support of JSPL’s allegation that Zee News demanded Rs 100 crore from JSPL in exchange for not airing news stories targeting the company.

Kingfisher Airlines is up 4.6 percent as its employees said the company has started crediting their salaries. Kingfisher said would soon submit operations resumption plan to Directorate General of Civial Aviation.

Kalanithi Maran-owned Sun TV is down 2.15 percent after the Chennai-based firm bagged the Hyderabad franchise of the nine-team Indian Premier League by bidding just over Rs 85.05 crore a year, filling the void caused by the recent ouster of Deccan Chargers.

ICICI Bank, Tata Power,M&M, HUL, NTPC,Maruti Suzuki, Tata Motors are among gainers in Sensex and Nifty.

Naveen Jindal-led Jindal Steel and Power is trading 1 percent lower as Zee News said Jindal had presented “farcical evidence” in an attempt to divert attention from the demand for an independent probe into the coal scam.

RIL, TCS, Wipro, Bharti Airtel, Bajaj Auto, BHEL, Coal India, L&T, ONGC,Hero MotoCorp,Sun Pharma,SBI,HDFC Bank,ITC are among losers in Sensex and Nifty..

The PSU stocks are likely to remain buzzing with the government clearing the sale of 10% stake in iron ore giant NMDC besides allowing a ministerial panel to look at options other than auction. The Finance Ministry is hopeful of raising Rs 12,000-13,000 crore from stake sale in the public sector undertakings by December-end which could help the government to rein in fiscal deficit.

The ailing aviation sector stocks too are likely to remain in lime light, while on one hand the month-long stalemate at Kingfisher Airlines has ended, on other the aviation minister Ajit Singh, reversing an earlier decision and ending a long-running dispute between the government and local airlines, has allowed domestic carriers to establish their own ground-handling units at India’s six metro airports.

Results today: There will be lots of important result announcements and reactions based on them to keep the markets ticking. 3M India, Dabur India, Gail India, HCC, Hindustan Oil, HUL, ICICI Bank, IDFC, India Infoline, IOB, JSW Ispat, NTPC, PNB, Procter & Gamble, Punjab & Sind Bank, Sesa Goa, Tanla Solutions and Torrent Pharma are among the many to announce their numbers today