Nifty nears 11\,550; auto stocks zoom

Nifty nears 11,550; auto stocks zoom

Capital Market Last Updated at September 16, 2020 11:05 IST

Key equity indices firmed up and hit day's high in morning trade. The Nifty hovered near the 11,550 level. Gains in auto stocks were negated by losses in banks and IT shares.

At 10:23 IST, the barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex, was up 82.65 points or 0.21% at 39,127. The Nifty 50 index added 22.9 points or 0.2% at 11,544.10.

The broader market was up for third trading session after the Sebi on 11 September issued a circular mandating multi cap funds to allocate least 25% of their portfolios in large-, mid- and small-caps each by February 2021.

The S&P BSE Mid-Cap index gained 0.32% while the S&P BSE Small-Cap index rose 0.31%.

Buyers outpaced sellers. On the BSE, 1238 shares rose and 889 shares fell. A total of 146 shares were unchanged.

COVID-19 Update:

Total COVID-19 confirmed cases worldwide stood at 29,479,686 with 9,33,542 deaths. India reported 9,95,933 active cases of COVID-19 infection and 82,066 deaths while 39,42,360 patients have been discharged, according to the data from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India.

Economy:

India's exports slipped 12.66% to $22.7 billion in August, on account of decline in the shipments of petroleum, leather, engineering goods and gems and jewellery items, according to the government data released on 15 September 2020. The country's imports too declined 26% to $29.47 billion in August, leaving a trade deficit of $6.77 billion, compared to a shortfall of $13.86 billion in the same month last year, as per the data.

Buzzing Index:

The Nifty Auto index climbed 2.05% to 8,198.45. The index topped other sectoral indices on the NSE.

Mahindra & Mahindra (up 4.6%), Bajaj Auto (up 3.09%), Motherson Sumi (up 2.69%), Tata Motors (up 2.16%), TVS Motor (up 1.66%), Maruti Suzuki (up 1.59%), Hero MotoCorp (up 1.51%) and Eicher Motor (up 1.48%) advanced.

Stocks in Spotlight:

National Fertilizer (NFL) spurted 5.62% after the company posted a consolidated net profit of Rs 108.31 crore in Q1 June 2020 as compared to a consolidated net loss of Rs 64.07 crore in Q1 June 2019.

Consolidated net sales for Q1 June 2020 stood at Rs 2831.85 crore, rising 11.2% from Rs 2,547.04 crore in Q1 June 2019. During the quarter ended 30 June 2020, NFL's production, dispatches, sales and market collections largely remained unaffected. The company has been able to operate all its five plants at normal levels except for restriction in load for few days due to limitation of supply of bags.

SpiceJet dropped 1.12%. The low-cost air carrier reported a consolidated net loss of Rs 600.52 crore in Q1 June 2020 compared with net profit of Rs 262.89 crore in Q1 June 2019. Net sales during the quarter slumped 83.2% year-on-year (YoY) to Rs 489.60 crore, as flight operations remained suspended for most part of the quarter following the nationwide lockdown. On an EBITDA basis, loss was Rs 11 crore for the reported quarter as against profit of Rs 747.5 crore for the corresponding quarter last year. On an EBITDAR basis, the profit was Rs 13.5 crore for the reported quarter as against profit of Rs 812.1 crore for the same quarter last year.

Sterlite Technologies jumped 5%. The company announced a partnership with Bharti Airtel to build a modern optical fibre network for Airtel across 10 telecom circles. This modern optical network will enable Airtel to deliver world-class customer experience through enhanced scalability, reduced latency, and improved bandwidth. The densely fiberized, future-ready network, will also form the foundation for many next-gen services such as 5G, FTTH, IoT, enterprise networks, and Industry 4.0.

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

First Published: Wed, September 16 2020. 10:20 IST

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Nifty nears 11\,550; auto stocks zoom

Google Grilled on Ad Business Dominance by US Senate Panel | Technology News

Google Grilled on Ad Business Dominance by US Senate Panel

Google was questioned on its dominance of the interlocking businesses which connect advertisers with newspapers and websites looking to host them.

By Reuters | Updated: 16 September 2020 10:58 IST

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Google made a series of purchases, including DoubleClick and AdMob, to help make it the dominant player

Highlights

Advertisers' complained Google was opaque about where ad dollars went
Trump's Justice Department expected to a file lawsuit against Google
Google executive argued that the companies involved had violated policies

Alphabet's Google faced a bipartisan buzzsaw of tough questions about its ad business in a hearing on Tuesday, with a particular focus on whether it misused its dominance in online advertising to drive profits.

Senator Mike Lee, a Republican and chair of the US Senate Judiciary Committee's antitrust panel, pressed Google's Don Harrison, who testified remotely, on the company's dominance of the interlocking businesses which connect advertisers with newspapers, websites and other firms looking to host them.

"As that business has grown, so too have complaints that Google - which both operates the ad selling and buying platforms, and sells its own inventory through those platforms -has conflicts of interest and has manipulated or rigged online ad technologies and auctions to favor its own interest," Lee said.

He and others pressed Harrison on advertiser complaints that Google was opaque about where ad dollars went, specifically how much went to publishers and how much to Google.

Harrison, who took over as head of Google's corporate development in 2012, argued that the ad tech ecosystem was crowded and competitive, with Amazon and Facebook, AT&T, Comcast and others among Google's powerful rivals, and that the price of placing an ad had fallen.

The tech giant made a series of purchases, including DoubleClick and AdMob, to help make it the dominant player in online advertising.

Lee's concern was echoed by fellow Republicans like Senator Josh Hawley as well as Democrats, such as Senators Amy Klobuchar, the top Democrat on the panel, and Richard Blumenthal.

The hearing was held as President Donald Trump's Justice Department is expected to file a lawsuit against Google within weeks, according to sources familiar with the matter.

Blumenthal called the task of defending Google "thankless" because of the many roles it plays between buyer and sellers in online advertising.

"(It) seems unacceptable in a really free market and in a free enterprise system which is why I hope there will be antitrust enforcement directed against Google," he said.

Klobuchar, whose father was a journalist, expressed concern that newspapers did not receive adequate revenues from advertisements placed on their websites because of Google's dominance.

"I literally don't have personal grudges against these companies, like sometimes the president has expressed about various companies. I don't," she said. "I just want our capitalist system to work."

While conservative bias is not covered by antitrust law, Senator Lee, backed by Hawley, questioned Harrison about Google's threat to drop a conservative publication from its advertising and bar some conservative commentators from making money on Google's YouTube.

Google's Harrison said the companies involved had violated policies, such as those against placing advertising next to racist or similar content.

Is Android One holding back Nokia smartphones in India? We discussed this on Orbital, our weekly technology podcast, which you can subscribe to via Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or RSS, download the episode, or just hit the play button below.

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Further reading: Google, online advertising, antitrust law