Market is seen opening higher in the early trade tracking positive leads from Asian markets and overnight gains on the Wall Street. Trading of CNX Nifty futures on the Singapore stock exchange indicates that the Nifty could fall 19 points at the opening bell.
In overseas markets, Asian shares were trading higher, with investors looking to a range of economic data from China for clues to exactly how far China's growth has cooled down. The US market rose on Friday, 16 October 2015, as investors appeared to shrug off lackluster corporate earnings and mixed economic data.
Closer home, foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) bought shares worth a net Rs 436.79 crore on Friday, 16 October 2015, as per provisional data released by the stock exchanges. Domestic institutional investors (DIIs) bought shares worth a net Rs 102.49 crore on Friday, 16 October 2015, as per provisional data.
Among corporate news, Reliance Industries' (RIL) consolidated net profit rose 12.52% to Rs 6720 crore on 33.8% decline in turnover to Rs 75117 crore in Q2 September 2015 over Q2 September 2014. The result was announced after market hours on Friday, 16 October 2015. A strong showing of the refinery business and increase in profit margins of the petrochemicals business led to a stronger-than-expected growth in RIL's bottom line in Q2 September 2015. RIL's gross refining margins (GRM) hit a seven year high of $10.6 per barrel in Q2 September 2015. The GRM was $8.3 per barrel in Q2 September 2014. The profitability of the petrochemicals business improved due to a combination of strong volume growth, product mix improvement and lower energy costs.
RIL's bottom line was also boosted by exceptional one-time gain of Rs 252 crore in Q2 September 2015. This was a net impact of gains of Rs 2911 crore (net of taxes) on sale of investment in EFS Midstream LLC and provision for impairment in US shale gas assets amounting to Rs 2659 crore (net of tax). It may be recalled that Reliance Holding USA, Inc, a subsidiary of RIL concluded the sale of its interest in EFS Midstream LLC to an affiliate of Enterprise Products Partners L.P. in July 2015. EFS Midstream provides natural gas gathering, treating, compression and condensate processing services in the Eagle Ford Shale.
According to RIL, the near term outlook for the US shale gas business remains challenging due to weak macro environment. The long term outlook for the business remains promising.
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With regard to the progress of the roll out of the broadband business, RIL said that the network roll-out across the country is substantially complete. RIL's subsidiary Reliance Jio Infocomm (RJIL) is implementing the ambitious broadband project. FY 2017 (year ending 31 March 2017) will be the first full year of commercial operations of RJIL.
Meanwhile, RIL also announced in its Q2 September 2015 investor presentation that RJIL and Reliance Communication have decided to share spectrum in 800 MHz band in 7 telecom circles.
Hindustan Unilever (HUL) turns ex-dividend today, 19 October 2015, for dividend of Rs 6.50 per share for the year ending 31 March 2016 (FY 2016).
Maruti Suzuki India announced after market hours on Friday, 16 October 2015, that it has introduced all-new Ertiga packed with several new features and technologies on Friday, 16 October 2015. The petrol variant of the vehicle is available from Rs 5.99 lakh to Rs 8.26 lakh while the diesel variants are available from Rs 7.55 lakh to Rs 9.25 lakh ex-showroom Delhi.
Infosys announced after market hours on Friday, 16 October 2015, a collaboration with IBM, in which Infosys will tap Bluemix, IBM's Cloud platform to rapidly prototype, develop and deploy the next generation of Cloud apps for its global client base. The collaboration includes the launch of Bluemix-powered Innovation Lab for co-creation of apps with clients; training of Infosys developers on Bluemix and cloud app development skills; as well as Infosys' adoption of Bluemix Dedicated to leverage its vast library of cognitive computing and analytics solutions and other services to build client apps.
IBM launched Bluemix with a $1 billion investment in 2014, that matured quickly to become the largest Cloud Foundry deployments in the world, and providing a developer-friendly catalog of over 120 tools and software-services, combining the most prominent open-source, IBM and third-party technologies.
Indian Hotels Company announced after market hours on Friday, 16 October 2015, that a meeting of the board of directors of the company will be held today, 19 October 2015, to consider and if thought fit, approve the amalgamation of the company with Lands End Properties Private Limited (LEPPL), a wholly owned subsidiary, by way of a scheme of arrangement between the company, LEPPL and their respective shareholders and creditors. The board will also consider and if thought fit, approve on that day the amalgamation of the company with International Hotel Management Services LLC (IHMS), a wholly owned subsidiary incorporated in the State of Delaware, United States of America, by way of a scheme of arrangement between the company, IHMS and their respective shareholders and creditors.
A reversal of trend during the latter part of the trading session helped key indices clock decent gains on Friday, 16 October 2015. The barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex, surged 204.46 points or 0.76% to settle at 27,214.60. The 50-unit CNX Nifty rose 58.65 points or 0.72% to settle at 8,238.15. The Sensex and Nifty, both, hit 8-week closing high.
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