India Stocks

We’ve been a little iffy about recommending a majority of the IPO’s to hit the Indian market in the past few months. As far as the power companies went, there wasn’t anything that interested us apart from maybe Indiabulls Power but even that was something you could have dealt with in the secondary market. This week saw the successful listing of Jubilant FoodWorks, better known as the company that runs and markets the pizza chain Domino’s Pizza in India. Now that Jubilant has listed, the IPO is a success and the rest will run from the secondary market, looking at the prospects of this company, TIS recommends a buy on Jubilant FoodWorks from a long term investor’s point of view.

The joke doing the rounds since yesterday is quite cheeky! It goes “Du-bai or not Du-bai that is the question”. Ha! Quite tongue in cheekish but appropriate all the same. When the markets open this week that’s the first question that traders and investors the world over have to answer. In a previous article posted this month titled ‘Signs Of A Correction’ , I remember ending that post with these words and I quote straight from the article “A correction around this time is likely to be a drawn out one. Price wise and time wise unless of course some big event casts its shadow and spooks the market leading to a tremendous fall.”

The events related to Dubai and the news that comes out of there this week has the potential to be that ‘Big event which spooks the market’. It’s something that can shift the Indian market from the current bullish gear to a selling, fear driven frenzy.

By now you must have probably heard that Reliance Industries has decided to acquire LyondellBasell also known as the world’s  third largest manufacturer of chemicals.It is refreshing to talk about Reliance in a context which does not involve the battle of the Ambani brothers in the Supreme Court and news of an acquisition interest like this is a guaranteed news maker. Reliance has offered Ten billion dollars to buy LyondellBasell and it is doing so in style. An all cash deal-no fuss, no tangle. With the pile of cash Reliance is sitting on it’s no wonder that Mukesh Ambani finds himself the richest Indian in the world even past steel Czar Lakshmi Mittal in the Forbes List of Indian Billionaires.

In the past few months a lot of opinions have been thrown around regarding the rise in the world markets. Compared to last year the markets are definitely doing better. In India the rise has been phenomenal. From March we’ve been on a very welcome Bull run. The question which has been asked for quite a while now has been “When Is This Going to End?” ,there are some traders who are ripping their hair out unable to understand what exactly is going on, according to many this is a level that both the Sensex and the Nifty should not be able to sustain.

The Auto pack has rebounded excellently this year making the pack a stand out outperformer on the Indian markets. It’s been a sector which even the bears like, that in itself says a lot about it. This article is however not about the entire auto sector. It’s about one small section within the auto sector that is nonetheless an important one. I’m concentrating on companies which are involved in the manufacture of trucks and similar heavy vehicles. If you are a long term investor then these are companies that you can seriously consider adding to your portfolio.

The first impression that you might receive upon reading the title of this post would be that the writer is trying to suggest that the Indian markets are headed or heading towards a correction. A dip in the indices which have for the last six months or so stayed positively in the green are now going down into the red zone. Let me categorically say that I am not suggesting that a correction is imminent or anything like that. However based on the movement of the markets during the past few trading sessions, there is evidence to suggest that we might be moving towards a correction in the medium term.

As you probably know the final set of hearings in the Reliance gas dispute have begun. The first set of hearings began this past week .No verdict is expected in the immediate future. It will take a few weeks for the arguments, counter arguments and deliberations by the three member Supreme Court bench itself. Remember that there are three parties in this case-RIL, RNRL and the government itself. One aspect remains-this is definitely the last leg of the long running irritating feud. The battle of the billionaires will have an impact on the two companies that the two directly represent in this case. This case is paramount to the future of memorandums between two companies, if they are legally binding or not. In the short to medium term here is the trade side for both RIL and RNRL.

After a private meeting with officials of the Finance Ministry yesterday, Anil Ambani the Chairman of the R-ADAG group walked calmly into his car flashing a silent grin at the peering eyes of the media. At first the conclusion reached was that this was a routine meeting regarding the gas dispute that he is fighting with his elder brother Mukesh in the Supreme Court. As we now know, this is false. Anil Ambani is now trying to put out a fire that has engulfed his telecom company Reliance Communications (RCOM). One factor has however remained the same; this latest issue promises to become yet another brother vs. brother fight.