Mumbai/New Delhi, November 7
The Bombay Stock Exchange benchmark Sensex on Wednesday advanced for the sixth straight day to close 85 points higher at 18,902.41, levels seen over a month ago, on foreign fund buying amid the re-election of Barack Obama as the US President.

The 30-scrip Sensex, which had gained 386 points in the last five trading sessions, opened lower but picked up pace to close 85.03 points, or 0.45 per cent, higher at 18,902.41. This level is closer to 18,938.46 points on October 5, 2012.

Brokers said investors and Indian industry cheered the re-election of US President Barack Obama, raising hopes that his continuity will be good for bilateral relations and global economic growth.

The broadbased National Stock Exchange index Nifty advanced 35.70 points, or 0.62% to close at 5,760.10.

"The markets surged to over five-week highs... However, index was off its day's high in the last part of the day due to profit-booking. Post US-elections, focus shall continue to be on second quarter results as well as reforms actions," said Nidhi Sarswat, senior research analyst at Bonanza Portfolio.

Traders said sentiment was further bolstered as Finance Minister P. Chidambaram expressed the hope that economic ties with the United States would improve with Obama's re-election. The rise was on the back of stocks from realty and banking on expectations of good loan demand in the festival season.

Information technology stocks, including Infosys and TCS, also closed with gains. The Indian software companies get over 50 per cent revenue from the US and European markets.

However, Bharti Airtel shares ended nearly 1 per cent lower after reporting 11th consecutive quarter of profit dip.

The BSE realty sector index gained 2.76% — the most among sectoral indices. It was followed by the BSE banking index (1.07 per cent) as SBI climbed 1.91 per cent.

With reports trickling in about the outcome of US presidential polls, Asian stocks ended in positive zone. European markets also opened higher. — PTI

New Delhi/Bangalore, November 7
India will likely miss its revised fiscal deficit target for the financial year ending in March, a Reuters poll showed, putting a question mark over the country's efforts to avert a credit rating downgrade.

Under pressure from global rating agencies and its own central bank, the government unveiled a new plan last week to keep the fiscal deficit at 5.3% of GDP this financial year, higher than a previous target of 5.1% but lower than last year's 5.8%.

However, higher spending on fuel and fertilizer subsidies along with lower-than-estimated non-tax receipts are likely to keep the deficit at last year's levels, according to a poll of 21 economists.

That could force New Delhi to borrow an extra Rs 400 billion via bonds as early as December.

"Measures taken are fairly limited, like a reduction in the subsidy in diesel prices is modest ... and actual data until September shows that the revenue performance is very weak," said Andrew Kenningham, an economist at Capital Economics. "Growth is not expected to pick up significantly this year so there is no reason to be optimistic that they are going to come near the target."

India's fiscal deficit is the widest among major emerging economies due to huge spending on subsidies for items such as food, fuel and fertilizers.

Subdued tax revenues in a slowing economy have aggravated fiscal strains and both Standard and Poor's and Fitch have placed "negative" outlooks on India's current BBB-minus ratings.

With the prospect of downgrade to junk status looming large, the government has announced a slew of reforms since mid-September, raising the price of subsidised fuel and fertilizer, and lifting the bar on foreign investment in the airline, insurance, pensions and retail sectors to shore up the flagging economy. — Reuters

Singapore/Mumbai, November 7
American multinational financial services corporationMorgan Stanley has launched the sale of its India private wealth management unit, which manages about US $1 billion including loans, after entering the highly fragmented and competitive market just four years ago, sources with knowledge of the matter said.

Wealth management platforms are usually sold for about 2 to 3 per cent of the assets under management, although the sources said it was not yet clear what price tag the unit could fetch.

Morgan Stanley has launched a strategic review of the division, the sources said, a process that typically ends with a sale.

The review is part of the bank's efforts to withdraw from subscale wealth management operations globally, one of the sources said. The sources declined to be named because the sale process is not public.

A Morgan Stanley spokesman declined to comment. The bank's India unit sale underscores a growing trend of consolidation in Asia's wealth management industry as private banks struggle to earn profits due to rising regulatory costs and wafer-thin advisory fees.

India is a particularly difficult market for wealth managers as cutthroat competition, high staff costs, weak markets and limited product offerings have squeezed fee revenue.

Many foreign players had scrambled to open up shop in India a few years back to take advantage of robust economic growth, only to find themselves struggling.

"Wealth managers have been trapped by the good potential macro of India," a top executive at a rival private bank familiar with the matter said.

DIFFICULT MARKET: India's ranks of millionaires shrank 18 per cent to 125,500 last year, according to Capgemini and RBC Wealth Management's world wealth report released in June, reflecting a one-third decline in stock market values and a weakening rupee.

Last year was the first time India's wealthy declined in number since 2008.

But in the longer term, wealth is expected to rise steadily in Asia, with relatively brisk economic growth creating large numbers of new millionaires annually in India, China and across the region — a trend that banks have tried to harness to their advantage. — Reuters

New Delhi/Mumbai, November 7
Top Indian telecoms carrier Bharti Airtel Ltd will struggle to improve its profits in the coming quarters amid an uncertain regulatory environment in its home market after the company reported its 11th consecutive quarter of profit decline with margins pressured by intense competition.

Bharti, controlled by billionaire Sunil Mittal, on Wednesday reported its consolidated net profit fell 29.8% to Rs 721.2 crore in July-September this year from Rs 1,027 crore in the same period last fiscal. It also posted a 5.4% dip in sequential net profit for the second quarter against Rs 762 crore in Q2FY12.

Total revenues, however, rose 17.14% to Rs 20,283 crore in the quarter against Rs 17,276.4 crore in the year-ago period. The company's total subscriber base across services stood at 262.6 million globally at the end of September 2012.

Despite a dip in profit, Bharti managed to exceed margin estimates, which came in at 31.3 per cent.

Competition is seen abating in the world's second-biggest mobile phone market after a court order revoked the permits of several smaller carriers, which is a positive for market leaders Bharti and the local unit of Vodafone Group Plc.

India's leading carriers, however, face the risk of paying out billions of dollars in regulatory fees over the next few years with the government planning to impose a surcharge on airwaves held by them and also due to reallocation, or switching, of their superior quality spectrum when their permits are renewed.

"The worry remains regulation," said Vivekanand Subbaraman, a telecommunications analyst at PhillipCapital India. "The regulatory concerns have overshadowed operating performance," he said.

Chandigarh, November 7
India’s first indigenously created low-cost tablet, Aakash, will soon be highlighted at the United Nations headquarters. The Indian government will be presenting a tablet each to the representatives of each country during the UN General Assembly, session beginning November 28.

The government is showcasing Aakash to the international community in order to project its flagship programme to promoting computer penetration even at the lowest echelons of the society, by giving these tablets to 220 million students in the country. The CEO of Canada-based Datawind Ltd, Suneet Singh Tuli, will also be making a presentation about this tablet before the international community.

Tuli said after the first volume of the tablet, Aakash, was rejected by IIT, Rajasthan, on the grounds of its low specifications (memory, resistive screen and processor) being too low, the company has come up with an updated version of the tablet, Aakash 2. “The new tablet will be launched on Nov 11, and IIT Mumbai has already endorsed it following the new features being added. We propose to supply 100,000 units of Aakash 2 to the university and college students in the first phase. Though these tablets will work on a WiFi network only, we’re commercially launching this tablet in the market as Ubislate 7Ci and Ubislate 7C+. The latter will also work on a 3G network,” he said.

The new tablets will also have higher indigenization than Aakash 1. Tuli said as against just 16% indigenization in the first tablet, the Aakash 2 had almost 40% indigenization.

“We’re assembling all tablets in India, mainly through subcontract manufacturing, in Delhi, Hyderabad and Bangalore. We’ve also set up our own fab unit in Amritsar. We’ve also scaled up production capacity to 3,500 tablets per day, but we’re now looking at hiring more subcontract manufacturers and expanding capacity to 10,000 units a day,” he added.