Mumbai, May 21
Investors who say the values of their shares soar this week following the UPA's victory in the Lok Sabha elections chose to book profits. The Sensex, which jumped 20 per cent on Monday to hit the uppercircuits, receded sharply today and closed at 13,736 points, down 324 points. 

In the broader markets, the Nifty was down 59.40 to 4211 points. The major losers today were led by L&T which fell 8.6 per cent to close at Rs 1,242 after shooting up nearly 50 per cent this week.

Other scrips like Maruti Suzuki, ICICI Bank, HDFC and Hindalco were the other big losers closing more than 5 per cent lower.

On the whole, the Sensex movement remained choppy swinging between a high of 14,089 points and a low of 13,704.

However, stocks in the mid-cap and small-cap space continued in positive territory. While the BSE smallcap index gained 2.5 per cent, the midcap index remained unchanged.

Among sectoral indices, the BSE capital goods index was down 5.4 per cent with L&T, ABB and Bharat Bijlee closing sharply lower. The BSE bankex was down 2.9 per cent and the BSE auto index closed 2 per cent lower.

However, the BSE oil and gas index gained slightly amidst reports that the government may de-control prices of petroleum products. PSU stocks in this sphere gained more than ten per cent with HPCL, IOC and BPCL closing more than 10 per cent higher while ONGC gained 8.4 per cent.

Worldwide, the stock markets fell after the US Fed warned of a deeper recession. Japan's Nikkei, Hong Kong's Hang Seng and South Korea's Kospi all fell sharply as a result.

PTI adds: Marketmen said a sharp fall in European markets adversely impacted the market in late afternoon trade. European bourses were down 1.70 per cent to 2.36 per cent in early trade.

"It was correction induced by profit-booking," said Bonanza Portfolio assistant vice-president Avinash Gupta, adding that going forward the market is expected to be volatile and may test the lower end.

Stocks of oil companies escaped the selling pressure while banking and capital goods shares were battered.

"In today's market, the exception was the oil sector PSU's. This was on account of appreciation that the there could be deregulation of oil and petroleum products. This could reduce subsidy burden enabling companies to generate resources to pursue the growth," Gupta said.

ONGC, BPCL, IOC and HPCL notched up smart gains in the range of 8-15 per cent. — PTI 

New Delhi, May 21
Anil Ambani-led Reliance Power will invest over Rs 12,000 crore for executing 2,520-MW hydro power projects in Arunachal Pradesh, to be commissioned in the next Five Year Plan (2012-17).

"Reliance Power has signed an agreement with the Arunachal Pradesh government for developing 2,520 MW of hydro power projects in the state," a Reliance Power spokesperson said.

The company has signed agreement with the state government for developing four hydro power projects — 1,200 MW Kalai-II, 420 MW Amulin, 500 MW Emini and 400 MW Mihundon.

These projects were awarded to the company through competitive bidding conducted by the state government.

The current hydro project portfolio of Reliance Power is 4,620 MW, one of the largest in private sector in India.

Besides, the other projects of the company in the state are 700-MW Tato-II and 1,000-MW Siyom, a company statement said.

Construction activities have commenced at Tato-II and Siyom and preliminary work like preparation of Detailed Project Report is going on for all the other projects, it said.

All these projects are Run-of-river (ROR) projects and would take 6-7 years to get commissioned. They are expected to be commissioned in the next plan period (2012-17) and Tato-II will be the first project to go on-stream.— PTI

Washington, May 21
President Barack Obama signed a tough new law on Wednesday aimed at cracking down on the kinds of mortgage fraud and predatory lending that helped trigger the current financial crisis.

Speaking at a White House signing ceremony, Obama said the Treasury Department had received some 62,000 reports of mortgage fraud last year and the Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act would give prosecutors new tools to enable them to investigate the complaints.

The law expands the Justice Department's authority to investigate lenders not covered by current bank fraud statutes, firms that issued as many as half of the subprime mortgages four years ago, the President said.

The law gives the department the resources it needs to "pursue these criminals, bring them to justice and protect hardworking Americans most affected by these crimes," Obama told a crowd that included lawmakers.

It "gives prosecutors and regulators new tools to crack down on what helped cause this crisis in the first place, and that's the twin scourges of mortgage fraud and predatory lending," he said.

The financial crisis began when home buyers who purchased houses with low-cost adjustable rate mortgages began to default because of rising interest rates. 

Financial institutions heavily invested in mortgage backed securities teetered on the verge of collapse, prompting the government to step in. Obama expressed optimism the country would return to prosperity. — Reuters

Chandigarh, May 21
Erratic power supply in Haryana and Punjab has brought the industrial production in the region to a grinding halt. With the industry in the region having to face unscheduled power cuts and compulsory off days (24 hours in Punjab), industrial production has drastically come down.

Industrialists say on the one hand, the recession has begun to take its toll on their profit margins, on the other, the state governments are doing little to ensure regular power supply. In Haryana, industrialists rue that they are facing a shortage of cash inflows and it was becoming difficult to shell out more money for running the units on captive power.

Since generation of captive power is two times more expensive than the power supplied by the state power utilities, industrialists in Haryana said they were now forced to dig in their cash reserves for captive power generation, rather than spending on industrial expansion.

Ramesh Verma, a handloom exporter from Panipat, said they had to make do with just eight hours of power supply. “It’s a double whammy for industry here. On the one hand, we have had to reduce our profit margins to bag export orders, on the other, we also have to spend additional money on captive power generation so that we can dispatch our orders in time,” he said.

Sources in the Haryana Power Utilities informed TNS that as against a supply of 790 lakh units (LUs), the demand had shot up to 820-840 LUs per day. “Though we are trying to bridge the demand and supply gap by purchasing power from all available sources, there are still gaps and we have to introduce cuts,” said a senior official. He, however, said there was just four-hour cut on industry.

Bharat Rattan, general secretary of Panchkula Small Scale Industrial Association, said the unscheduled power cuts were on the rise. “It is easy to manage industrial production if the power cuts are scheduled, but now we never know when the cut would be imposed. These unscheduled cuts also lead to heat losses in most industrial units because by the time the furnaces heat up to optimum temperature, the power goes off and the entire process has to be repeated,” he said.

In Punjab, too, industry has been dealing with one compulsory weekly cut, besides several unscheduled cuts on industry. As against a demand of 1,350 LUs a day, the power availability is just 1,250 LUs a day. A Ludhiana-based steel rolling mill owner said while they had got used to a compulsory weekly off, which has been in force for the past two years, it was getting difficult to work with such unscheduled power cuts. “Now that the elections are over and with paddy transplantation season about to begin, the situation will only worsen,” he said. 

BRIEFLY

Inflation rises to 0.61 pc
New Delhi: Driven by the rising prices of essential food items like cereals, tea, spices and fruit and vegetables, inflation inched up to 0.61 per cent for the week ended May 9. Besides, the manufactured goods like sugar, gur, imported edible oil, steel ingots and synthetic yarn too became dearer during the week which witnessed inflation move by 0.13 per cent from 0.48 per cent in the previous week. — PTI

Motilal Oswal to launch MF
Jaipur: Motilal Oswal Financial Services on Thursday said it was planning to launch its first scheme by the next quarter of this fiscal through its mutual fund arm Passionate Investment Management Ltd. "We are likely to invest Rs 50-100 crore over a period to launch and promote our mutual fund. We are not looking for any global alliance and go for it alone," Motilal Oswal managing director Raamdeo Agarwal said. — PTI

Hyundai launches LPG Accent
New Delhi: Hyundai Motor India on Thursday launched the LPG variant of its entry-level sedan Accent, priced at Rs 5.34 lakh. The new LPG version of Accent, named as 'Accent eco' comes with a factory fitted LPG kit approved and certified by the Department of Explosives (DoE) and the Automotive research Authority of India (ARAI), the country’s premier automobile testing and certifying authority, the company said in a statement. — TNS

Wheat futures start
New Delhi: Over 30,000 tonnes of wheat were traded till noon on the two leading commodity bourses MCX and NCDEX on the first day of the relaunch of wheat futures contracts, after a gap of over two years. "Futures trading in wheat started on a good note on both MCX and NCDEX. Volumes were good on the first day," Hyderbad-based commodity brokerage firm Kary Comtrade analyst Veeresh Hiremath said. — PTI

Cinepolis to open 500 screens
New Delhi: Mexican global multiplex operator Cinepolis will pump in around Rs 1,700 crore in India to open around 500 movie screens by 2016. The firm said it will open its first multiplex in India by the second half of this year. It will also introduce the concept of megaplex where each theatre will have up to 14 screens. — PTI