Rupee breached the psychological 51 per US dollar mark and plummeted to a record low against dollar as banks continuously bought the greenback for importers and foreign institutional investors (FII
The board of directors of Reliance Industries (RIL), India's largest private company, and Reliance Petroleum (RPL) are set to meet on March 2 to consider a merger of the two companies.
RIL currently holds 70.6% in RPL.
More clarity on the swap ratio is expected to emerge on Monday. For the moment, many feel the move will benefit RIL's shareholders more than those holding RPL shares.
RIL is currently trading at Rs 1,265.05 per share, while RPL trades at Rs 76.20 per share. On that basis, the swap ratio works out to one share of RIL for 16.6 shares of RPL.
On the basis of book value, the swap ratio is expected to be around 20 shares of RPL for every one share of RIL.
The stock of Ranbaxy Laboratories fell 18% to Rs 169.95 per share on Thursday after the company received a letter from the US Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) charging the company with falsifying data and test results in pending and approved ANDAs (abbreviated new drug applications) from its Paonta Sahib facility. The decline came on a day the Sensex rose 0.59%.
The USFDA has invoked the Application Integrity Policy (AIP), which questions the integrity of data in drug applications at the Paonta Sahib facility. Somewhat comfortingly, the USFDA does not have any evidence that imply the drugs do not meet quality requirements. Nor has the regulator found any evidence of health risks from the products.
New York - US stocks plunged Friday as the government took a bigger stake in Citigroup Inc and figures showed the economy shrank at a far greater pace than expected.
The Commerce Department said Friday that the US economy shrank by 6.2 per cent in the final quarter of 2008, the worst fourth-quarter showing by the country since the recession of 1982.
The sharp downward revision resulted mainly because of a larger- than-expected contraction of inventories of unsold goods and a sharp decline in US exports and consumer demand.
The 30-share Sensex continued to trade weak with selling pressure seen across all the sectoral indices. There were no gainers in the sectoral indices. BSE Realty, IT and Oil & Gas and Metal were hammered badly.
Weak industrial production figures also added to the weak outlook on the major bourses, which were already reeling under heavy pressure after a weak start this morning. Negative closing of the US markets and weak Asian markets also weighed sentiments.
Mirroring widespread selling BSE Midcap and Smallcap were also down by 0.66% and 0.38% respectively.
Rajkot-based Saurashtra Kutch Stock Exchange Ltd (SKSE) received permission from Sebi to function as a self clearing member on derivatives segment. Now, SKSE would soon begin trading on the future and option (F&O) segment, said CEO of SKSE, Dr Alok Chakrawal.
New York - US stocks plunged Friday as the government took a bigger stake in Citigroup Inc and figures showed the economy shrank at a far greater pace than expected.
The 30-share Sensex continued to trade weak with selling pressure seen across all the sectoral indices. There were no gainers in the sectoral indices. BSE Realty, IT and Oil & Gas and Metal were hammered badly. 
