Investors lose Rs 11 trillion in stock market

Investors have lost a whopping amount of nearly Rs 11,00,000 crore in the stock market in less than three months since Diwali last year, with over Rs 3 lakh crore being wiped out in the past three days alone.

The stock market today plunged to its lowest level in nearly five months after three consecutive days of fall -- a period during which the benchmark Sensex plummetted by about 755 points, including a 288-point dip witnessed today.

Total investor wealth, measured in terms of cumulative market value of all listed stocks, today itself fell by over Rs 1,32,000 crore -- taking the loss for past three days to over Rs 3,00,000 crore amid macro-economic concerns emanating from inflationary and governance deficit related factors.

Experts said that downward pressures in the market extended well beyond the past three days and heavy selling pressure has continued for over two months now, primarily due to heavy outflows by overseas and domestic investors keeping away in the absence of any positive triggers.

In the process, the total investor wealth has fallen to near Rs 66,00,900 crore -- a huge dip of close to Rs 11,00,000 crore since last Diwali on November 5, 2010, the day when the Sensex scaled its record closing level of 21,004.96 points.

The Sensex has now fallen to 18,395.97 points -- marking a plunge of over 2,600 points since Diwali.

So far in 2011, the investor wealth has fallen by nearly Rs 9,00,000 crore, while nearly Rs 2,00,000 crore was lost during the last two months of 2010.

Experts said that a huge dip in investor confidence is also corroborated by a considerable plunge in the trading turnover at the bourses.

The average daily cash market turnover at the bourses have fallen to nearly Rs 15,000 crore, marking a decline of over one-third from approximately Rs 23,000 crore in October-November 2010.

The current level of turnover is not even one-third of the record level of business volume witnessed in mid-2009, when the daily average turnover was close to Rs 50,000 crore.

The intensity of current downward rally on the bourses can be gauged from the fact that only four stocks out of the 50 top blue-chips that make the Nifty index have given a positive return in the past one month. Even the gains of these four stocks -- namely HCL Tech, TCS, Sesa Goa and PowerGrid -- are only nominal between 0.6-7.3 per cent.

Mobile number portability launch today

Today's the day all those frustrated with their mobile phone networks have been waiting for. They can dump their operator for a better one just for Rs 19. And yes, it's for both post-paid and pre-paid customers.

As Mobile Number Portability takes off across the country today, all you need to do is switch operators if the one you have isn't meeting your needs and standards. Of course, you can only do it within the current service area. So it doesn't really help people who are moving cities. You can't retain the number you had in Mumbai if you shift base to Delhi. But that apart, this service is sure to soothe a few frazzled nerves and help you block a lot of unwanted service calls off.

Though studies reveal that MNP will make a negligible difference to subscriber base of operators and therefore to service as a whole, it'll be worth tracking the customer enthusiasm and reaction to the much-hyped service that's finally being launched, three years late.

Today's the day all those frustrated with their mobile phone networks have been waiting for. They can dump their operator for a better one just for Rs 19. And yes, it's for both post-paid and pre-paid customers.

As Mobile Number Portability takes off across the country today, all you need to do is switch operators if the one you have isn't meeting your needs and standards. Of course, you can only do it within the current service area. So it doesn't really help people who are moving cities. You can't retain the number you had in Mumbai if you shift base to Delhi. But that apart, this service is sure to soothe a few frazzled nerves and help you block a lot of unwanted service calls off.

Though studies reveal that MNP will make a negligible difference to subscriber base of operators and therefore to service as a whole, it'll be worth tracking the customer enthusiasm and reaction to the much-hyped service that's finally being launched, three years late.

Also, analysts believe that number portability might spur a price war again and the profitability of Indian cellular service providers is likely to be squeezed.

Amit K Khire of Ambit Capital, told DNA newspaper, "We expect MNP to increase the cost structure of all the players as they will need to spend more on improving their quality of service and customer care,"

However telcos believe that users will now look for quality providers.

"Post-paid users generally have a higher standard of service and broader requirements. The operators will offer them bundles of sops and services. This might also happen for that class of prepaid subscriber that mimics the postpaid subscriber," said Rajan Mathews, director general of lobby group, the Cellular Operators Association of India or COAI in Live Mint.

IIMs raise the cutoff bar, entry becomes tougher

Getting into IIMs is never easy.

When the Indian Institutes of Management announced the cut-off percentiles for the admission process on Wednesday, a few of the IIMs had raised their cutoffs.

Like IIM Ranchi, which had the highest cut-off of 99.65 percentile among all IIMs last year, has further raised it to 99.66 for the 2011-13 batch. At IIM-Calcutta, Ranchi's mentoring institute, the cutoff is 99.59. IIM Ahmedabad announced that 540 students whose overall percentile is 99 and of each section were 94 would be called for the personal interview. IIM Lucknow, which is one of the CAT 2010 organising institutes, has increased the weightage to CAT scores.

What was 30% for the CAT scores has gone up to 37.5% for the next batch. The fees, too, have been raised from Rs 8 lakh to 12 lakh. IIM Kozhikode has also decided to give 50% weightage to CAT score, 15% to GD and social skills, personal interview 25% and writing task 10%.

Interestingly, many IIMs are set to take in more women and non-engineering students to increase the diversity in the institute. IIM-L has decided to give 2.5 more points for these candidates. The directors of newer IIMs will meet next week to decide on holding joint PIs and GDs.

The scores for the Common Admission Test (CAT) 2010 were released on Wednesday. There are eight candidates who scored 100 percentile and 19 with 99.99 percentile. Of the latter group, two are women — one from Kerala and the other from Andhra Pradesh. And all of them are engineers.

While many students found it difficult to access results online, the IIMs said that the website did not crash. "The highlight of the day was that the website did not crash despite around two lakh students checking the result on the web. The fact that it was slow was something that was impossible to help," said Himanshu Rai, convener, CAT. However, the rumours that the CAT results had leaked in the first week of January turned out to be true.

Gold prices to shoot up 19% in 2011

Guys, some HOT News on Gold Market..

Although gold prices fell on Friday, leading towards the biggest weekly loss since July last year, partly due to the recovering US economy and its slipping demand, however, the commodity prices in 2011 are expected to be 19 per cent higher than last year.

According to experts, surveyed by the London Bullion Metals Association (LBMA), the average gold price forecast was USD 1,457 per ounce.

Analysts surveyed by the group predicted that silver prices will average USD 29.88 per ounce, which would represent a 48 per cent increase on the average price in 2010.

The average platinum price in 2011 was forecast to rise 12.6 per cent from the average 2010 price, to USD 1,813 per ounce.

"And palladium shows no sign of slowing down with an average 2011 price prediction of USD 814,65, a 54.8 per cent increase on last year's bumper average price," the LBMA noted in a press release.

Looking back at last year's survey, the average gold price prediction of USD 1,199 per ounce, which was 23.4 per cent higher than the 2009 price, was just USD 26 lower than the actual average price of USD 1,225 per ounce.

"All metals rose as predicted, although silver and palladium exceeded almost everyone's expectations," the group said.

Bekhal

Bekal Fort is the largest fort in the state of Kerala, India, spreading over 40 acres (160,000 m2). An important features of this fort are the water-tank with its flight of steps, the tunnel opening towards the south, the magazine for keeping ammunition and the broad and wide steps leading to the Observation Tower which is a rarity. From there one has ample view of towns in the vicinity like Kanhangad, Pallikare, Bekal, Kottikkulam, Uduma etc. This observation center had strategic significance in discovering even the smallest movements of the enemy and ascertaining safety of the Fort.

The Fort appears to have been built up from the sea since almost three fourth of its exteriors is drenched and the waves continually stroke the citadel. The Mukhyaprana Temple of Hanuman and the ancient Muslim Mosque nearby bear testimony to the age-old religious harmony that prevailed in the area. The zigzag entrance and the trenches around the fort show the defense strategy inherent in the fort.

Unlike most other Indian Forts, Bekal fort was not a center of administration for no remains of any palace, mansion or such buildings are found within the fort. Arguably the fort was built exclusively for fulfilling defense requirements. The holes on the outer walls of the fort are specially designed to defend the fort effectively. The holes at top were meant for aiming at the farthest points; the holes below for striking when the enemy was nearer and the holes underneath facilitated attacking when the enemy was very near to the fort. This is a remarkable evidence of technology in defense strategy.