infotonic

The economic slowdown has begun to hurt companies across industries forcing many top rankers to cut production, opt for reduced working hours and rationalise their workforce. Sample this: All the sectors are feeling the pain Truck makers slash working hours Steel,Cement, Textiles trims output Airlines cut number of flights Shippers see drop in traffic Demand is slowing as credit crunch, high rates weigh on customer spending Auto & Steel Sector On Friday, India’s leading truck maker, Tata Motors, confirmed the shutdown of its Pune unit for six days this month, which will follow a three-day closure of its Jamshedpur plant. Ashok Leyland, the second largest producer of trucks, slashed its weekly working days to three.On the same day, JSW Steel opted for a 20-per cent cut in output this month. Another steel maker Essar also confirmed reduction in capacity utlisation. Last week, Tata Steel’s UK subsidiary, Corus, effected a similar cut. Textile and Cement Grasim Industries, an Aditya Bi...

I was wondering that the entire financial turmoil started in US but its Indian stock markets that have fallen more; what could be the reasons; well i have tried to put in some points to ponder. 1. Indian stocks were over-valued. The P/E had climbed up in 2007 from 25 to 35 (2007 companies) which was not justified by the performance of the corporate sector. 2.Margins under pressure: In the quarter ending September 08 earnings declined 34 per cent although sales increased 38 per cent. 3. Selling pressure by FIIs as their investments were in toxic securities - by the way - they are the root cause of the problems. While Indian banks don't have any investments in these they are indirectly impacted. 4. funds were diverted from shares and even small savings schemes to bank deposits following the increase in the rate of interest. The growth of bank deposits which was 15 per cent at the beginning of the year rose to 20 per cent by the middle of September. Debt became far more attractive tha...

Another day and another volatile fluctuations. Whats happening with the market? The stock market crash is defying all conventional wisdom of valuations. Many bigwigs are trading below their market capitalisation. This essentially means that, hypothetically , if you buy the complete equity of these stocks and sell the assets in the market, the realisation would be significantly higher than the price paid to buy the shares. If we exclude companies with marketcap of more than Rs 1,000 crore, which have slightly better pricebook value ratio, combined market-cap falls further to just 54% of their total net worth. So if you have cash worth Rs 110,000 crore, you can acquire companies with total book value of Rs 205,000 crore. Well, i know it is a conjectural scenario, as such buy-outs would have to follow the norms of a takeover which requires an open offer based on recent historical prices. Further, only a part of the shares are actually traded and it is not possible to buy the complete hold...