GMR Infrastructure: Hold

I advice the investors to hold the stock with a long term perspective. Though the company has big projects including power projects in the pipeline, such projects have long gestation period.: Ashish Kapur: CEO: Invest Shoppe

72K cr gain in a week!

Shares of over 340 companies including blue chips like Reliance Industries, ONGC and Bharti braved the global financial crisis and gained Rs 72,000 crore in market valuation in the past week.

Interestingly, banking stocks including HDFC Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Punjab National Bank, Yes Bank, Axis Bank, Bank of Baroda and Oriental Bank also saw their market valuations swell up.

Surprisingly, country's largest private sector housing finance company HDFC gained over Rs 3,000 crore in marketcap in the past five trading sessions. Its marketcap stood at Rs 65,613 crore on Friday last week as against Rs 61, 934 crore at the end of previous week.

Nestle

HDFC Securities has given a Buy rating for Nestle from a medium term perspective. CMP of this stock is Rs 91.

ICICI on recovery

ICICI had lost almost 22% in the last seven sessions on fear of over exposure to the foreign markets and that it could be adversely hit by the current crisis. On Friday it made an assurance that it has made all disclosures of its foreign investments. On back of Friday’s rally the share recovered almost 10%.

The stock closed 9.07 per cent higher at Rs 628.10, off the day’s high of Rs 635.

Asian Stock markets a happy lot

Monday has come as good news as Asian share prices soared in early trade on the back on news of US government’s mammoth rescue plan for the battered financial sector. Highlight is the move by the US Treasury to ask Congress for authority to spend 700 billion dollars to buy bad mortgage-related assets from financial institutions. This has in some marginal way returned the investor’s confidence back into the markets.

Japanese shares were up 1.98 per cent in morning trade and Australia's market jumped 3.5 per cent, with financial stocks leading the charge. New Zealand rose 2.47 per cent by mid-afternoon. Chinese prices opened up more than eight per cent, Hong Kong rose 2.8 per cent, Singapore was up 1.03 per cent and South Korea's KOSPI index gained 1.62 per cent.

IT all began with the sub-prime crisis.

If you lost your money in the market crash of January 2008, here's the route to your loss, in chronological order.

2001-2005: House prices in the US begin to rise rapidly. Banks lend aggressively and create a subprime industry.
Sub-prime lending refers to lending (at slightly higher interest rates) to people who may not be eligible for a loan under normal circumstances. Maybe they don't have a regular job or income, or have defaulted in the past.
Banks traditionally did not lend to such people due to high risk of default. But since these loans were mortgaged against property and property prices were rising continuously, banks started doing so. If customers defaulted, they good sell the mortgaged property.

2005: The booming housing market halted abruptly in many parts of the US.

2006: Prices are flat, home sales fall.

February 2007: Sub-prime industry collapses in the US; more than 25 sub-prime lenders declare bankruptcy, announce significant losses, or put themselves up for sale.
While they were lending, banks did not factor in the possibility of a fall in property prices. When the Federal Bank (the US equivalent of RBI) started increasing interest rates, the sub-prime borrowers started defaulting and banks started selling off the mortgaged properties. As more and more properties came into the market for selling, the property prices fell.

August 2007: Many leading mortgage lenders in the US filed for bankruptcy

March 2008: Bear Sterns falls.

September 2008: Lehman Brothers file for bankruptcy. Merrill Lynch sells off to Bank of America.

Between 2001 and 2006, the US financial markets had developed a new product - a bond securitised against the mortgages.
In simple terms it means that the mortgage banks borrowed money against the mortgages on the condition that they would repay to lenders as soon as they recovered their mortgages. The lenders in this case were financial institutions (like Bear Sterns, Lehman and Merrill Lynch) who in turn sold retail bonds to individuals.
Sadly, the repayment never happened. And institutions like Bear Sterns, Lehman, Merrill Lynch and AIG were the casualties. Since the mortgages were not honoured, the banks could not repay these financial institutions who in turn could not repay retail investors

ICICI Bank can rally upto Rs 625-630: Gujral

Technical Analyst, Ashwani Gujral is of the view that ICICI Bank can rally upto Rs 625-630.
Gujral told CNBC-TV18, "ICICI Bank hits a key support zone between Rs 500-550. The stock when it falls 10% on rumours of management selling, that is probably a good time to buy into that. It was at Rs 700 just seven days back. So, I think you could see a rally right up to Rs 625-630."
He further added, "Ranbaxy has seen a lot of bad news. Even Rs 350-360 is a good level from a medium-term perspective. It will take some time to recover. But you could get resistance around Rs 425-430."

MoneyControl