Mumbai: Markets across the world moved higher as optimism brewed that the Eurozone’s war chest will be deployed to help troubled countries address elevated bond yields, reports Financial Times. Germany may allow the European Financial Stability Facility to lend directly to troubled Eurozone member.
Asia markets rose on Wednesday morning following upbeat closing on Wall Street and positive cues from Europe. Japan’s Nikkei Stock Average added 0.8%, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng and China’s Shanghai Composite were up 0.3% and 0.1% each.
In India, DLF may offload its stake in the Nagpur information technology Special Economic Zone after September, in the second round of raising funds from non-core asset sales to reduce debt, reports Business Standard. The company had said it was targeting to raise a total of Rs 10,000 crore from non-core asset sales in the medium term to cut its debt which stood at Rs 22,725 crore as of March quarter.
GVK Power and Infrastructure will continue to remain in focus on reports that it is looking at raising $500-600 million by selling a stake in its Singapore arm. GVK is in talks with government of Singapore Investment Corp for a potential deal. The sale will help fund expansion in Australia and reduce $1.26 billion debt.
Cement stocks will be focus as India’s competition watchdog may impose a fine of about Rs 3,000 crore on top cement companies for forming a cartel and fixing prices, reports Economic Times. The order is expected in a few days. The watchdog may impose a fine of 10% of the average turnover of the cement company in the previous three years, but could scale down the penalty because of the economic slump.
BHEL and Larsen & Toubro will be in focus as the Prime Minister’s Office has called for a meeting on Wednesday to revive the issue of imposing duty on foreign power equipment in India, reports Mint. The move is aimed at discouraging the purchase of cheap power equipment from China and providing a level playing field to domestic manufacturers. BHEL and L&T will benefit because they have been lobbying with the government to limit imports for quite some time.
ONGC will be on the radar after it inked an agreement with China National Petroleum Corp to jointly bid for energy assets overseas, putting aside long standing rivalry for oil and gas blocks, reports Mint. The deal could also lead to the Chinese firm participating in efforts to develop and exploit ONGC’s domestic assets.
Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission is likely to announce tariff hike of more than 22% in the first half of July, reports Economic Times. The regulator may also spell out penalties on distribution companies if they fail to deliver services on time.
Lastly, data released by Google Inc. shows that the New Delhi is becoming a lot more proactive about demanding the search giant remove online content it deems unsuitable, reports Wall Street Journal India. Between July and December the Indian government filed 101 content removal requests to Google, a 49% increase over the previous six months.
