MUMBAI: Market benchmark Sensex fell over 160 points in early trade and the NSE Nifty cracked below the 7,700-mark today due to profit-booking by investors after yesterday's gain amid weak cues from Asian markets ahead of the US employment data.

The 30-share barometer dropped by 160.09 points, or 0.63 per cent, to 25,102.12, with all sectoral indices led by FMCG, metal, IT and auto stocks leading the fall with losses up to 1.08 per cent.

Mumbai: U.K. Sinha, chairman of capital markets regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) said on Thursday the regulator is in discussions with global experts and regulators on risks from high frequency trading (HFT).

Sebi is also looking at bringing changes in the so-called consent mechanism norms and allowing cases without any market-wide impact to be settled through a mutually agreed fees to the regulator.

Bengaluru: Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp. on Friday reported a sequential decline in revenue in the quarter to March marking the Nasdaq-listed firm’s slowest start to a calendar year since 2009.

Worryingly for investors, Cognizant slightly revised down its forecast for 2016 revenue growth, with the management now expecting full-year revenue to be between $13.65 billion and $14 billion, an increase of 10-13%, as against the earlier guidance of 10-14%.

NEW DELHI: Air India has hit pay dirt with its move to link Delhi and San Francisco (SFO) with a non-stop flight, making it the only airline that flies direct on this route.

The tri-weekly connection, which was launched last December, now commands a hefty premium over the one-stop flights offered by airlines from the Gulf, Europe, America and Southeast Asia. The reason: Flyers save so much time on this connection — the journey to Silicon Valley takes just 17 hours while the return is an hour less — that they don't mind shelling out a little extra.

Indian conglomerate ITC will soon be expanding its super-premium chocolate segment with luxury brand Fabelle, which will be sold at the company's luxury hotels.

The manufacturing of the chocolates will be done at the company's unit in Bengaluru. The assorted chocolates will be sold at Rs 1,000 each on an average.

State-run Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd on Friday announced the commissioning of a 500 Mw thermal unit in Jharkhand.

"(Bhel) has added another coal-based power plant to the grid by successfully commissioning a 500 Mw thermal unit in Jharkhand," the company said in a statement.

While Indian pharmaceutical companies and infotech companies are leading India Inc in research and development (R&D) expenses and patent applications, but a majority of local companies are lagging global peers in R&D spending.

According to statistics of the stock exchanges, pharmaceutical firm, Lupin spent the most in R&D as percentage of its net sales (8.9 per cent), Tata Motors spent the maximum in value terms (Rs 2,200 crore) in the financial year 2015.

The government has approved the proposal of Infosys to set up an IT/ITeS special economic zone in Bengaluru in an area spread over 4 hectares.

The decision was taken by an inter-ministerial Board of Approval (BoA), headed by Commerce Secretary Rita Teaotia, at its meeting on April 28. "The Board noted that the developer is in possession of the land. It decided to grant formal approval to the proposal," the minutes of the BoA meeting said.

Private sector lender Yes Bank has received in-principle nod from markets regulator Sebi to act as custodian of securities.

The city-headquartered bank has been given a year's time to establish the business by developing the operational, tech and human capital capabilities, it said in a statement.

State Bank of India, the country's largest public sector bank, has launched a mobile payment solution that will enable customers to make digital payments at offline stores by scanning a QR (quick response) code on their smartphones. The service has been launched in Bengaluru with a sizable number of merchants and will soon expand into other cities.

Dubbed mVisa, the solution is a card-less way for customers to pay for goods at offline stores, and will be available to all SBI credit card, debit card and net banking users. The solution which is bank agnostic will be accessible to customers through the company's SBI Anywhere app.

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