Mumbai (IANS): Indian equities rose further on Friday afternoon, with a key index ruling almost four per cent higher about 90 minutes before the closing bell. The 30-scrip Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) sensitive index (Sensex), which opened at 8,480.74 points, was at 8,671.78 points — a rise of 325.95 points or 3.91 per cent from its previous close. Similarly, the S&P CNX Nifty index of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) gained 2.99 per cent from its last close to rule at 2,695.65 points.

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Asian markets soared Friday as the prospect of fresh stimulus measures in China and Japan and upbeat signals from major U.S. firms like Bank of America sparked hopes of a turnaround in the world economy. European markets opened higher. Major markets advanced throughout Asia, with Japan's index shooting up more than 5 percent and Hong Kong's benchmark gaining over 4 percent. Companies across all industries, from Japanese exporters to Australian resource firms and Chinese banks, posted strong gains.

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Toyota Motor Company (NYSE: TM) is not only worried about its short-term future, but the futures of about 100 of its U.S. suppliers as well. The automaker offered this tidbit to the automobile task force under President Obama that's currently sizing up whether or not to again help General Motors Corporation (NYSE: GM) and Chysler from dire straights. Toyota indicated that out of its top 100 U.S. suppliers, about 20 to 30 were in dire condition, and that it had redundancy plans in place should those partners no longer be able to give it the parts needed to make cars.

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HONG KONG - A former banker at giant investment firm BNP Paribas has been convicted of insider trading in Hong Kong's first criminal trial of its kind, authorities said yesterday. Ma Hon-yeung, former vice president of BNP Paribas Peregrine Capital, was found guilty along with his girlfriend and three of his relatives of 12 counts of insider dealing, the Securities and Futures Commission said in a statement.

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Casino operator Wynn Resorts Ltd. says the wife of chief executive Steve Wynn has been nominated for re-election to the company board despite the couple's pending divorce. Wynn Resorts said Thursday that 66-year-old Elaine Wynn will be up for re-election to a 3-year term when the Las Vegas-based company holds its annual meeting May 5. A Clark County District Court spokesman told The Associated Press on Tuesday that divorce papers for the couple were filed March 5 and sealed the same day. The sealing means details are not public.

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The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is to provide about 630 million U.S. dollars to Pakistan in the next three years for the development of its energy sector, state radio reported on Friday. The assistance will be used for power generation of renewable and hydropower energy and power transmission stations, Radio Pakistan said. The ADB will also provide technical assistance in clean energy development initiatives, reports said.

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Oil prices slipped below $47 a barrel as investors jockeyed over whether OPEC will announce a production cut at its meeting on Sunday, and how big the cut might be. Benchmark crude for April delivery fell 23 cents to $46.80 a barrel by afternoon in Singapore on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Oil prices soared $4.70 on Thursday to settle at $47.03. Prices have lurched between $42 and $47 this week as leaders of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries sent mixed signals about a possible output reduction.

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Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT) will hook up with PC maker Dell, Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) to enable physician offices across the U.S. to have electronic health record availability. It will also sell data information management systems to clinics and doctor's offices in cooperation with Dell. In other words, Wal-Mart may be planning to expand beyond traditional retail and into health care. Again.

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LONDON - Oil prices rebounded back above $42 yesterday as market attention focused firmly on OPEC's weekend output meeting. Oil prices plunged on Wednesday after figures showed rising crude oil stockpiles in the United States and sentiment swung against expectations that the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries will cut output further. In London yesterday, Brent North Sea crude for delivery in April rose 64 cents to $42.04 a barrel.

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Costs are likely to keep growing for two of the Pentagon's biggest weapons programs as the military pushes to field fighter jets and high tech Army units even before fully proving the technology, according to Government Accountability Office reports released Thursday. The reports by the government watchdog agency concluded the Army is moving forward with the $159 billion Future Combat Systems program even though some of its technology is unproven and over budget. The Joint Strike Fighter program.

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KARACHI: In a bid to pacify international lenders, the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has introduced such stringent guidelines for banks to monitor accounts and transactions which have little chance of being implemented anytime soon, industry people say. Most of the local banks are not equipped with the technology, human resource and procedures to gather maximum customer information as required by new prudential regulations for curbing money-laundering and terrorist financing, they added.

via thenews.com.pk

Oil prices inched toward $43 a barrel Thursday in Asia after an unexpected rise in U.S. crude inventories, suggesting demand remains poor, sparked a big drop in prices overnight. Benchmark crude for April delivery rose 48 cents to $42.81 a barrel by afternoon in Singapore on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Oil prices fell $3.38 on Wednesday to settle at $42.33 a barrel after the Energy Information Administration said crude supplies in the U.S. climbed unexpectedly by 700,000 barrels for the week ended March 6. Analysts surveyed by Platts.

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More wonderful and weird tidings: Bain Capital, the brainiac Boston buyout fund, has hired salvage consultancy AlixPartners to extricate any remaining value from its bankrupt buy-out, Outback Steakhouse Incorporated. Outback is the originator of mega-calorie Blooming Onion, and is apparently too many calories for Bain, as the company reported a quarterly loss of a whopping $750 million.

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ZURICH - UBS revised its annual loss for 2008 upward by 1.2 billion Swiss francs yesterday because of legal settlements and writedowns. The Swiss bank said a previously announced $780 million fine and restitution package agreed with U.S. authorities to settle a massive tax evasion probe, together with writedowns on toxic assets, pushed its losses to 20.89 billion francs last year. UBS' previously published full-year loss was 19.7 billion francs.

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Johnson & Johnson's chairman and chief executive received compensation valued at $23.03 million in 2008, an 8.2 percent decrease in a year when the health care company posted better results than many competitors and net income and revenue rose. William C. Weldon, who has held his posts since 2002, received compensation totaling $25.1 million in 2007. In 2008, he received a base salary of $1.79 million, according to a proxy statement filed Wednesday with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

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KARACHI: The Karachi stock market remained under selling pressure on Wednesday amid ongoing political uncertainty and deteriorating law and order situation in various parts of the country ahead of the long march planned for today (Thursday). Analysts said the long march, which is expected to start today, would invite stressed selling, which is evident from the fact that the market closed in the red zone.

via dailytimes.com.pk

World stock markets stalled Thursday, with Japan's index off more than 2 percent, as investors began to doubt a global rally could be sustained amid more grim news about the region's powerhouse economies. Most Asian markets ended in the red, led by shares in automakers and financial firms, in lackluster trade that defied slim gains on Wall Street overnight. Major European bourses opened lower. Stocks worldwide rallied on Wednesday as indications struggling U.S. bank Citi Bank.

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Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is fed up with Congress' overspending efforts to stimulate the economy and he's come up with a neat way to express it: Over the past 50 days, Congress has spent $1 billion per hour. "In just 50 days, Congress has voted to spend about $1.2 trillion between the Stimulus and the Omnibus," McConnell says. "To put that in perspective, that's about $24 billion a day, or about $1 billion an hour-most of it borrowed. There's simply no question: government spending has spun out of control."

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Fitch Ratings said in a report Tuesday that credit card delinquencies hit a new record for the second straight month in January, with 4.04 percent of consumers at least 60 days late. "Record credit card delinquencies are just the latest sign that consumers are under considerable stress," said Fitch's Michael Dean. "The latest numbers point to even higher default rates and worsening consumer credit quality measures in the coming months."

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Flash back to December 17 when OPEC met in Algeria and announced a record 2.2 million barrel per day production cut. The global economy was in shambles, oil demand was in free fall, the price per barrel had just dipped into the $30s and oil-producing states were complaining about plummeting oil prices. Three months later, shambles is perhaps too soft a term for the current economic situation. Oil demand is still faltering. Members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries are headed for their next meeting Sunday in Austria still complaining about the price of crude.

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Pakistan's inflation rose in February after declining month on month for three months after hitting a record high of 25 percent in October, the Federal Bureau of Statistics said on Wednesday. The consumer price index (CPI), a key indicator of inflation, rose 21.07 percent in February from a year earlier, the bureau said. The CPI in February was up 0.95 percent from January.
Inflation had been falling since it hit a high of 25 percent in October raising expectations of a rate cut when quarterly monetary policy is announced in April.

via in.reuters.com

The day of reckoning for Bernard Madoff arrives with expectations that the decades spent by the financier soliciting billions of dollars with bogus promises of safe returns will end with a public confession to history's worst Ponzi scheme. In a packed federal courtroom, Madoff was expected Thursday to deliver on his lawyer's prediction that he will plead guilty to all 11 felony charges brought by prosecutors, ending a half-century career that saw him rise to Nasdaq chairman and one of Wall Street's elite. The plea could result in a maximum prison term of 150 years.

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Shares of office products retailer, Staples Inc. (NASDAQ: SPLS), recovered today after opening much lower following the company's announcement of a 14% fall in quarterly profit, which missed analysts estimates by 6 cents per share. For the quarter ending Jan. 31, 2009, Staples said it earned 36 cents per share, excluding one-time items, on revenue of $6.17 billion. This compared to analyst estimates of earnings of 42 cents per share, before one-time items, on revenue of $6.79 billion.

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DMG was fined 914 million liras in tax penalties over claims it had not fulfilled its liabilities on time during the sale of 25 percent of Doğan TV to Axel Springer for 375 million euros. Upon the demand of the Finance Ministry, the group delivered the collateral to the Halkalı Tax Office in Istanbul. The collateral includes a building in Istanbul’s Gümüşsuyu district and stakes in television companies that run Star TV and Kanal D, the company said.

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LG Display, the world's second-largest manufacturer of thin panels used in flat screen televisions, said Thursday that one-time Dutch partner Royal Philips Electronics has sold all its remaining shares in the South Korean company. Royal Philips Electronics NV sold its 13.2 percent stake, or 47.2 million shares, on Wednesday, LG Display Co. said in a statement. "The sale involved financial institutions and was in line with previous announcements that Philips would sell a portion of its stake in LG Display as part of its overall business strategy," the South Korean company said.

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