PremiumIndian indices may start higher on Friday. Asian stocks were buoyant on cues from US peers after US president Joe Biden struck a bipartisdan consensus on a major infrastructure investment programme. Earlier, US joblessness data showed a fall in number of people seeking state support.
Panasonic Corp sold all of its stake in Tesla Inc in the year ended March, filings from the Japanese firm showed on Friday. Panasonic bought 1.4 million Tesla shares at $21.15 each in 2010 for about $30 million. The stock is now worth $679.82 apiece. The windfall likely accounts for much of the 429.9 billion yen in "proceeds from sale and redemption of investments" in Panasonic's cash flow statement for the fiscal year that ended in March, the Nikkei business daily reported earlier. In the prior year, that figure was 49.13 billion yen.
Toshiba Corp kicked off its annual general meeting on Friday, with shareholders set to decide on whether to keep Osamu Nagayama as board chairman. The vote - expected to be very close - is seen by many as a referendum on corporate governance in Japan. Nagayama has been under immense pressure to resign after an independent investigation this month accused the industrial conglomerate of colluding with Japan's trade ministry to block foreign shareholders from gaining influence on the board at last year's AGM.
Markets are likely to be steady on Friday while trends in SGX Nifty suggest a positive opening of Indian benchmark indices. On Thursday, the BSE Sensex ended at 52,699, up 392.92 points or 0.75%. The Nifty was at 15,790.45, up 103.50 points or 0.66%. (Read here)
Chinese ride-hailing giant Didi Chuxing Inc. is looking to raise as much as $4 billion in one of the biggest US initial public offerings of the past decade. Didi, which is one of the largest investments in SoftBank Group Corp.’s portfolio, is marketing 288 million American depositary shares for $13 to $14 apiece, according to a filing Thursday with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. At the top of the range, the company would have a market value of more than $60 billion based on the outstanding shares listed in the filing.
IT consulting firm Accenture Plc posted higher third-quarter revenue on Thursday that beat analysts' estimates, as more businesses used its digital, cloud and security services to adapt to a hybrid work model in a post-pandemic world. Accenture, which acquired a number of businesses during the quarter, witnessed higher demand for its IT consulting services as the pandemic forced more companies to shift towards a cloud-based digitization strategy.
Indian Bank, Godrej Agrovet, ONGC, RIL, NBFCs, and other stocks could be in the news today. (Read here)
President Joe Biden announced on Thursday a hard-earned bipartisan agreement on a pared-down infrastructure plan that would make a start on his top legislative priority and validate his efforts to reach across the political aisle. But he openly acknowledged that Democrats will likely have to tackle much of the rest on their own. The bill’s price tag at $973 billion over five years, or $1.2 trillion over eight years, is a scaled-back but still significant piece of Biden’s broader proposals. It includes more than a half-trillion dollars in new spending and could open the door to the president’s more sweeping $4 trillion proposals for child care and what the White House calls human infrastructure later on.
LIC will infuse equity capital worth about ₹2,334.70 crore in its subsidiary LIC Housing Finance by picking up an additional stake in the company. LIC Housing Finance (LIC HFL) will issue shares at ₹514.25 apiece to its promoter Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) on a preferential basis. The board of directors of the company in its meeting last week had approved preferential shares up to 4,54,00,000 through a private placement to LIC. "The issue price of the equity share of the face value of ₹2 each shall be ₹514.25 apiece, which is the price calculated as per Sebi regulations, 2018," LIC HFL said in a regulatory filing on Thursday.
Asian stocks rose Friday after US shares hit a record on a bipartisan $579 billion US infrastructure deal that stoked economic optimism. The dollar retreated. Equities made modest gains in Japan, China and Hong Kong. Australian shares weathered the imposition of virus lockdowns in parts of Sydney. S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 contracts were steady after both indexes reached new peaks. Sectors seen as beneficiaries of the recovery from the pandemic, such as energy, led gains in U.S. hours, and banks rose in postmarket trading after clearing stress tests.
S&P 500 futures were up 0.1% as of 10:49 a.m. in Tokyo. The index rose 0.6%.
Nasdaq 100 futures dipped less than 0.1%. The gauge rose 0.6%
Japan’s Topix index climbed 0.5%
South Korea’s Kospi index was up 0.8%
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.2%
China’s Shanghai Composite index added 0.4%
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index climbed 0.5%
SGX Nifty was down 0.05%
The S&P 500 and Nasdaq finished at fresh records Thursday after US President Joe Biden reached a deal with a bipartisan group of lawmakers on a large infrastructure package. The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended up 1.0 percent at 34,196.82, with strong gains by industrial and financial companies. The broad-based S&P 500 gained 0.6 percent to 4,266.49, an all-time high, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index jumped 0.7 percent to 14,369.71, its third straight record. After weeks of negotiations, a breakthrough on a tentative infrastructure agreement came late Wednesday after senators agreed on a $973 billion package over five years, with some $559 billion in new funding.
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