We upgrade FY18-19ii EPS for OMCs by 10-25% on the back of: 1) firm GRMs; 2) sustained product sales; and 3) strong outlook for marketing margins. OMCs trade inexpensively, offering earnings yield of 10-11% and dividend yield of 3.5-5% on FY18ii, assuming 40% payout (>45% in FY17). We maintain ‘buy’ on all the three OMCs. HPCL is our top pick, given its net long marketing portfolio and lowest embedded value in SoTP.

Global research and brokerage firms CLSA and Deutsche Bank are bullish on the shares of Tata Consultancy Services, after India’s IT bellwether posted its second quarter (July-September) earnings yesterday, which beat analysts’ expectations as consolidated profit rose, backed by robust volume growth and operational performance. CLSA has retained a buy call on the stock, increasing the target price to Rs 2,970, from the previous target of Rs 2,880. TCS shares continued to rise on Friday morning, and were trading at Rs 2,580.75 on NSE, up by more than 1.2% since the previous close.

KOLKATA: Coal India workers may be celebrating the 20% salary increase they won after a hard bargain, but with every such hike, the monopoly state-owned company may be rendering itself uncompetitive in terms of production cost just when the sector is set to be opened soon for private commercial mining.

Following the salary revision, labour accounts for 55% of the cost of production at Coal India compared with 50% previously and about 22% for most private coal miners.

The benchmark Sensex went up 113 points and the NSE Nifty seized control of 10,000 level today as domestic investors raised the bar ahead of key industrial output numbers to be released later in the day. Another record close on Wall Street after the release of the US Fed minutes fuelled the uptrend.

The 30-share Sensex was higher by 112.53 points, or 0.35 per cent, at 31,946.52. Healthcare, realty, IT, capital goods, oil and gas and auto stocks were in the pink of health, rising by up to 0.86 per cent. The gauge had lost 90 points yesterday.

State Bank of India (SBI) will now give short-term working capital demand loans (WCDL) called the SME Assist to small- and medium-scale enterprises (SMEs) equivalent to 80% of their input credit for a period of nine months, at a concessional rate of interest. The new facility will be available to 1.6 million SME customers that the bank services across the country.

Tata Communications on Thursday said it will explore the possibility of acquiring the enterprise business of Tata Teleservices, another Tata group firm.

The development came after it was announced that Bharti Airtel will acquire consumer mobile business of (CMB) of Tata Teleservices Ltd (TTSL) and Tata Teleservices Maharashtra Ltd (TTML)'s in a debt-free, cash-free deal.

Larsen & Toubro on Thursday said it has entered into a definitive agreement with ESAB Holdings Ltd for selling its entire stake in wholly-owned arm EWAS Alloys Ltd for Rs 522 crore.

The engineering giant in a filing to BSE said that it has "entered into a definitive agreement with ESAB Holdings Ltd, a company registered in the United Kingdom, on October 11, 2017 for the divestment of its entire stake in EWAS Alloys Ltd".

State-owned Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) has dropped plans to merge its subsidiary Chennai Petroleum Corp Ltd (CPCL) with itself, a top company official said.

IOC holds 51.89 per cent stake in CPCL and had planned to merge the company with itself like it had done with another subsidiary, Bongaigaon Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd (BRPL), more than a decade ago.

Mumbai: Life Insurance Corp. of India (LIC) has put in a major bid for shares of reinsurer General Insurance Corp. of India Ltd (GIC Re), in the latter’s ongoing initial public offering (IPO), said two people aware of the development, on the condition of anonymity.

The GIC Re IPO is looking to raise Rs11,372 crore ($1.7 billion) at the upper end of the price band of Rs855-912 per share. The share sale values the insurance firm at Rs80,000 crore.

Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) is likely to report an increase in profit for the three months to September, benefiting from higher refining margins that will offset weaker earnings from its petrochemicals business.

Stand-alone quarterly net profit is likely to increase to Rs8,687.5 crore on revenue of Rs66,088 crore, according to a Bloomberg poll of seven analysts.

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