Market Live: Sensex, Nifty open mildly higher on RIL support; Bharti, Idea sink

10:15 am Tractor deal: Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) is set to buy a big tractor company in Turkey, reports CNBC-TV18.

The company has zeroed in on one of Turkey’s top five tractor makers, with the acquisition in ‘final stages’. An announcement to this effect is expected shortly.

This would be M&M’s second tractor acquisition in Turkey this year. In January 2017, it had acquired Turkish company Hisarlar. Turkey is Europe’s largest tractor market and globally commands a 3% market share in the agri-machinery industry.

The Turkish acquisition is part of M&M’s plan to double its global revenue to USD 5 billion by 2019. It is targeting 50 percent revenues from global markets by 2019.

10:02 am Transport sector in focus: Calling for reforms in public transport, Union minister Nitin Gadkari today asked transport ministers of states to submit suggestions on tax and permit issues, a government official has said.

Chairing a meeting of the Transport Development Council (TDC), the apex body that advises the Centre on matters relating to the sector, in Vadodara, the road transport and highways minister underscored the point that there is need for reforms in the sector.

“People are willing to accept change,” said Gadkari, urging the state ministers to work in this direction and give suggestions on taxes and permits.

Advocating removal of checkposts, he asked the states to adopt digital payment solutions.

9:59 am Order win: L&T Hydrocarbon has bagged order worth Rs 1,700 in Kuwait and the company will complete this order in third quarter of 2,020.

9:55 am Tata Steel up 2%: Tata Steel and thyssenkrupp AG have signed a memorandum of understanding to create a leading European steel enterprise by combining the flat steel businesses of the two companies in Europe and the steel mill services of the thyssenkrupp group.

9:45 am IPO opens: The USD 1.3 billion initial public offering of SBI Life has opened for subscription today.

SBI Life Insurance Company has garnered nearly 27 percent of IPO amount from anchor investors on Tuesday, the day before issue opening.

The country’s largest private life insurance company raised Rs 2,226 crore from 69 anchor investors, which include big PE firms and mutual fund houses like BlackRock Global, Axis Mutual Fund, HSBC Global, Monetary Authority of Singapore, Kuwait Investment Authority, Baron Emerging Markets Mauritius etc

The insurer raised this money at higher end of price band of Rs 685-700 per share.

India’s largest private life insurer will close its public issue on September 22.

The 12-crore shares IPO of SBI Life comprises of an offer for sale of up to 8 crore equity shares by country’s largest lender State Bank of India and up to 4 crore shares by BNP Paribas Cardif SA.

9:34 am Buzzing: Hyderabad-based Bodhtree Consulting was up 5 percent after it bagged Rs 100 crore order from the Medical Council of India to cover 550 medical colleges in the country under the Digital Mission Mode Project II.

9:25 am Market Outlook: “The unfaltering rise of stock markets over the past six months has made many of us a skeptical optimist love it or hate it, but you can’t ignore it,” Kashyap Pujara of Axis Capital said.

While earnings growth concerns continue and achieving GDP growth projection seems challenging at this point, expectations of post-GST recovery and rate cuts will only strengthen the domestic wall of liquidity/equity flows, he added.

According to him, the Street is expecting aggregate 16 percent earnings growth for 350 companies in FY18 but excluding outliers, growth is just 8-9 percent.

However, FY19 expectations broadly remain unchanged, he feels.

This will at best keep the market sideways till earnings catch up. Thus now may well be the right time for bottom-up investing, Pujara said.

9:15 am Market Check: Equity benchmarks opened mildly higher on Wednesday, led by support from index heavyweight Reliance Industries.

The 30-share BSE Sensex was up 63.74 points at 32,466.11 and the 50-share NSE Nifty gained 11.90 points at 10,159.45.

Telecom stocks – Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular and Reliance Communications fell 3-6 percent after telecom regulator TRAI slashed mobile call connection charge to 6 paise per minute from 14 paise currently, effective October 1.

Tata Motors, ICICI Bank, BPCL, Cipla, Coal India, Ambuja Cements, NTPC and Wipro were also under pressure in early trade.

Reliance Industries rallied 4 percent, followed by L&T, ONGC, HDFC Bank, ITC, Tata Power and Yes Bank.

Nifty Midcap was up 0.4 percent, outperforming benchmarks.
JK Tyre, Apollo Tyres, Ceat, Divis Labs, Kamat Hotels, Adani Transmission, Bombay Dyeing, HEG, Graphite India, Goa Carbon, Rain Industries, Shreyas Shipping and Cadila Healthcare gained up to 10 pecent.