Sebi is planning to fast track mutual fund products. This move will speed up the approval process and help fund houses to cater to investor demands.
Close on the heels of the alleged money laundering by farm owner Hasan Ali Khan through Switzerland-based bank UBS, Europe's biggest bank by assets, another Swiss bank, Credit Suisse, has come under scrutiny of the Enforcement Directorate (ED), which investigates foreign exchange violations.
In the first-ever auction of 'enemy property' that the Indian government has held since the 1971 Indo-Pak war, rights shares of Tata Steel were sold to an Indian investment firm for Rs 485 per share against the rights issue price of Rs 300 per share.
Technology, auto, FMCG and pharmaceutical stocks may be the most battered sectors of the Indian stock market this year. But select mutual fund schemes were able to notch up good returns despite being in these sectors by tweaking the investment mandate and smart stock-picking within the mid- and small-cap segments.
The stock-selling spree unleashed by foreign institutional investors over the past one month from November has turned them net sellers in the cash market this calendar year. But the markets have shown resilience mainly due to big buying by insurance companies, say experts.
Indian asset management companies (AMCs) are likely to see a hefty spike in their valuations, after the last week's 5 per cent equity stake sale by Reliance Mutual Fund to US-based hedge fund Eton Park.
The continued selling in frontline stocks by foreign investors over the past one month, which also coincided with curbs on participatory notes (P-notes), delayed the Sensex and the Nifty from closing above the crucial milestone of 20,000 and 6,000 respectively.
Infrastructure, realty are the current favourites.
With the listing of Reliance gold ETF on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) on Wednesday, four fund houses (Benchmark, UTI Mutual Fund and Kotak Mutual Fund being the other three) currently offer gold ETFs to Indian investors.
Domestic fund houses forge pacts with foreign peers to mop up $7 billion.
With the stock markets growing in size, this rule, which was framed eight years back, needs revision to allow such nominal dilution only if the IPOs are worth Rs 500 crore (Rs 5 billion) or above, according to experts. The rules require promoters to shed at least 25 per cent if the IPOs are less than Rs 100 crore (Rs 1 billion). The promoter holding in 500 listed companies has gone up to 58 per cent during the July-September quarter from 54 per cent in the April-June quarter.
While Geojit Financial Services and Kotak Securities are already managing large NRI portfolios in West Asian countries, Sharekhan, yet another local brokerage outfit, recently launched a broking platform called India First in Bangkok for NRI clients.
Spectacular returns by the recent initial public offerings on listing day are prompting a growing number of retail investors and even high net worth investors to borrow funds at a costly 16 to 17 per cent (for two or three weeks) to bid for IPO shares.
Credit Agricol (CA), the second-largest French bank, is all set to enter the Indian insurance and asset management business.US-based middle market focused investment bank Jefferies Group, which opened its representative office in New Delhi last month, plans to enter the institutional brokerage and asset management business in India.
Mutual funds are all set to capture the buoyancy in the energy sector. The latest to join the bandwagon is Sundaram BNP Paribas Mutual Fund, which is coming out with a three-year, closed-ended new fund offering 'The Energy Opportunities Fund'. The fund will invest in equity and equity-related instruments of companies focussed on the energy space or those directly or indirectly benefiting from it.
High net-worth individuals, or the rich investors with investment portfolios of Rs 25 lakh and above, who totted up huge losses in this year's price corrections in February and August, are booking profits following the nearly 4,000-point surge in the Sensex since late August.
A day after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke announced the rate cut, FIIs bought shares worth over Rs 2,400 crore (Rs 24 billion), lifting the index up by 650 points, one of its biggest intra-day gains.
Foreign institutional investors (FIIs), which were the major sellers last month, are on a buying spree.
Shares list at 21% premium over offer price of Rs 825.
Of the 450 stocks, 243 stocks -- mostly small- and mid-caps -- touched their 52-week highs on Tuesday. Both the Sensex and Nifty ended the day with declines of 0.34 and 0.24 per cent respectively.