Markets may open higher; infra stocks in focus

Union Cabinet has approved an ordinance for amendments in the Land Acquisition Act making PPP projects more viable

Markets are likely to open with marginal gains tracking the subdued trends in their Asian peers which have declined on sustained fall in commodity prices and concerns over political uncertainty in Greece.
 
At 8:25AM, the early indicator SGX Nifty was up 9 points at 8,327.
 
Pushing the reform agenda further, the Union Cabinet on Monday paved the way for easing the land acquisition Act for public-private-partnership (PPP) and rural infrastructure projects by approving an ordinance to make amendments to the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013.  The ordinance does away with the requirement of written consent from 70 per cent of landowners and social impact assessment for PPP projects in the infrastructure and social infrastructure sectors. The Cabinet on Monday also approved an ordinance to amend various provisions in the law on arbitration.

 

Meanwhile, in its latest Financial stability Report (FSR) RBI has estimated the rate of inflation to stabilise around 6% in 2015 while raising concerns over the possibility of a financial contagion in the Indian banking system, lower revenue generation in the last fiscal and the growing preference among FIIs towards the debt market which makes the Indian economy more vulnerable to the global trends.
 
Foreign institutional investors were net sellers in Indian equities worth Rs 204.22 crore on Monday, as per provisional stock exchange data.
 
Asian markets are subdued at opening tracking the trends in US markets and renewed concerns over political uncertainty in Greece. Japanese shares which had ended lower yesterday after paring their early gains on Ebola scare have started the day on a weak note and Nikkei has lost around 0.7%, so far. Hang Seng is also down by around 0.5% while Shanghai composite is flat.

 
Overnight, US markets closed flat in a thin trading session as volumes remained subdued ahead of the New Year’s holidays. S&P 500 index ended at record-closing high while Dow Jones Industrial Average and Nasdaq closed flat.
 
Stocks to watch
 
Infrastructure companies like, L&T and IRB Infra, may witness fresh buying on the government following the ordinance route to amend the Land Acquisi-tion, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013.

RIL is in focus as according to media reports, RIL has started integrating the backend operations of television shopping firm Home-Shop18 with the technology team of Reliance's consumer division
 

Development financial company IFCI will be in focus as the Cabinet has approved the finance ministry’s proposal to raise the government’s stake in the company from 47.93% to 51%, by infusing Rs 60 crore.
 
IDBI Bank is in news after its board approved the part of whole selling of its stake in CARE Ratings.
 
Godrej Properties is news after acquiring the  paid-up share capital and entire debentures of Godrej Premium.
 
Jindal Stainless is in focus after it said on Monday that it would de-merge its ferro-alloys, coke oven and stainless steel businesses into three different entities via the slump sale route.