Nifty pauses after rally; may hit 3100

It was a day of consolidation for benchmarks after a stupendous rally of over 5 per cent in previous trade. Broader indices ended a choppy session on a flat note.

Market found support in rate sensitives like realty and banks following the financial stimulus. Shares of metal companies rallied after global commodity markets gained momentum on expectations of bailout of US auto industry.

Bombay Stock Exchange’s Sensex ended 0.1 per cent or 9.44 points lower at 9,645.46, bouncing back from a low of 9,441.97. The high of the day was 9,746.01.

National Stock Exchange’s Nifty closed at 2920.15, down 0.28 per cent or 8.1 points. The broader index touched a high of 2945.30 and a low of 2861.55.

“Markets are in a rally backed by renewed FII interest. We have bounced from the lows and 3100 is expected on the Nifty. In the short-term basis, market outlook is positive,” said Amitabh Chakraborty, President-Equities, Religare Securities.

The government is likely to come out with a second stimulus package to propel economic growth. The second stimulus package would be aimed at generating employment and ensuring that the credit needs of the companies are met, said Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath.

While the benchmarks were lacklustre, the day belonged to second rung stocks. Buying momentum was seen in shipping stocks and shares of Reliance group stocks both Mukesh Ambani and Anil Ambani surged. Reliance Petroleum, Reliance Communication and Reliance Natural Resources ended higher.

BSE Midcap Index up 1.86 per cent and BSE Smallcap Index up 1.42 per cent.

“Some of the beaten down sectors like metals and real estate are under-owned and may see some buying coming in,” he added.

In an unusual development, the government on Thursday withdrew its affidavit in the Bombay High Court, wherein it had asserted Reliance Industries cannot sell its Krishna-Godavari basin gas to anyone without its approval to the pricing formula. This led to a bounce back in shares of Reliance Industries and a surge in RNRL.

Market discounted moderating inflation figure which dipped to 8 per cent for week ended November 29 from 8.4 per cent previous session.

This may come as welcome news as far as interest rates are concerned but on the macro economic front, India's infrastructure sector grew 3.4 per cent in October as compared with year-ago period, but was lower than the growth rate in September, which was 4.8 percent. The infrastructure sector accounts for 26.68 per cent of the total industrial output.

“Market has already factored in low October IIP data and is expecting it to dip to 2 per cent. Any surprise on the upside may lead to an upmove. Apart from this, a lot depends upon the year-end results by US financial companies like Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley and. It will drive the sentiments and global markets,” he added.

Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy in its monthly report has said that India’s Industrial output is expected to grow by 6.3 per cent in FY 09 as against the earlier estimates of 8.3 per cent.

US companies will start announcing year-end results beginning December 16.

Biggest Sensex gainers were Jaiprakash Associates (10.63%), Sterlite Industries (8.43%), Reliance Communications (4.8%), ACC (2.81%) and Reliance Industries (2.58%).

Technology biggies dragged the most in the Sensex pack. Tata Consultancy Services lost 6.24 per cent, Satyam Computer declined 5.18 per cent, Wipro fell 4.45 per cent and Infosys Technologies slipped 3.23 per cent. Other losers in the 30-share index comprised Hindalco Industries down 4.38 per cent, BHEL down 2.75 per cent and ONGC down 1.77 per cent.

BSE IT Index was down on fears of spending slow-down in the sector and appreciation of rupee against the dollar. Indian rupee was at 48.33, up 65 paise against the dollar over the previous close of 48.98 following renewed FII interest in domestic stock market.

State-owned banks are planning to cut rates on small-ticket home loans by up to 300 basis points by Friday, as RBI separately considers ways to help the banking sector make small home loans available at cheaper rates and relaxed norms. It lifted sentiments in realty and banking stocks. BSE Realty Index closed 2.12 per cent higher and BSE Bankex ended 0.89 per cent up.

Owing to the broader market participation, market breadth on BSE remained healthy with 1557 advances against 911 declines.

Meanwhile European markets were mixed and US stock futures were pointing towards a positive open. Dow Jones futures were up 0.14 per cent, S&P 500 futures moved 0.07 per cent higher and Nasdaq 100 gained 0.68 per cent.

England were too defensive: Harbhajan

Indian spinner Harbhajan Singh felt that England were far too defensive and wasted a good opening stand on the first day of the first Test on Thursday. Harbhajan said Zaheer Khan and Ishant Sharma bowled extremely well to restrict the visitors to 229 for five after Andrew Strauss (123) and Alastair Cook (52) put on a century stand. "England won a good toss and today was the best day to bat on this pitch. But for some reason, they were too defensive. They scored some 60-odd runs in the first session and 229 the entire day. Had we batted, we would have scored more than 300," Harbhajan said. "England were all but strokeless on a flat pitch. "Except for the odd ball that spun, turned and bounced, the wicket was good to bat on. You could play your shots if you wanted to," he said. On the post-tea session when India took four wickets to pull back England, the off-spinner said: "I thought we bowled well today, and we knew that things would happen in the last session. As I said, England did not look to score runs." Looking ahead, Harbhajan felt that Andrew Flintoff, who is batting on 18, could be the key man. "We will be hoping to get Freddie (Flintoff) first thing in the morning tomorrow," he said. As for India's response, Harbhajan asserted that the team has quality batsmen to put up a big total against a team that has just one quality bowler. "Flintoff is the only quality bowler. He hits the deck hard and can get wickets. Of course, England do have other bowlers, but then we have quality batsmen to play their spinners Monty (Panesar) and (Graeme) Swann," he said. Harbhajan felt that the pitch will increasingly assist spin. "I feel, spinners will have a big role to play in this match." On the tight security and gunmen manning the perimeter of the ground, Harbhajan said: "It was most unfortunate what happened in Mumbai and hats off to the security men (for the way they handled the situation). But it is great to be back to playing cricket and especially for England to return to India after all that happened."

Maradona trains his guns on Pele

Diego Maradona's dislike for Pele is well-known and the Argentine again minced no words in saying that the Brazilian never had the respect of players that he commands.

"The biggest and main difference between Pele and Maradona is I have the respect of all footballers, which Pele does not have. Pele is a friend of those who manages football. I am not friends with them. I am with the players," Maradona told a private TV channel Kolkata TV, on the last day of his two-day trip here on Sunday.

"I do not have anything against Pele, but Pele has against me. Because he was second to Ayrton Senna (triple Formula One World Champion), and second to Maradona as well," he said. During a FIFA poll to judge Footballer of the 20th century, Pele came second to Maradona. But later FIFA declared both as the best footballers of the 20th century.

Maradona also recalled his friendship with former Cuban President Fidel Castro and described the Communist leader as a bright man. "You get enriched every moment you spent with him, even when you say hello. We talked about football, politics, baseball. We talked of the USA as well. We talked about the dark sides of imperialism," he said.

Describing imperialism and its policies as the root cause of world economic problems, Maradona came down heavily on the US.

"The problems have been mainly created by the US. They say they are big, others small. They decide, and then we have to go by their decisions. But now, after what has happened to the US (economy), the time has come for every nation to take their own decisions," he said.

Maradona regretted terrorist strikes in the world, saying they were awful. "We have to stop this because there are many innocent people, innocent kids, paying the price. They should not be paying the price," he said.

Nokia 2605 Mirage now available from Verizon Wireless in US

Verizon Wireless is now offering Nokia 2605 Mirage for its customers in US. It is available through the official Verizon Wireless site for a price of $49.99 after a $50 mail-in rebate and a two-year contract. Apparently, the phone can also be purchased sans any contract for $220.

The mobile phone will be available across Verizon Wireless Communications Stores from January 23, 2009 onwards.

Nokia 2605 is a low end flip phone; however, it packs in it a VGA camera, Bluetooth 2.0, voice recognition feature, text and picture messaging, mobile web and support for Verizon services like Verizon Chaperone, VZ Navigator for assisted GPS.

It comes in the colour scheme of blue on the outside of the clamshell design. However, also offered with the phone is a pack of three Nokia Xpress On-snaps’, with patterns of flowers, stripes or animal prints to change the look of one’s Nokia 2605 Mirage as per the occasion or mood.

Britney Spears beats Barack Obama

Maybe John McCain should be taking lessons from Britney Spears.

The oft-troubled pop star did something this year that the Republican nominee for President failed to do — beat Barack Obama.

Oops, President Spears?

No, don’t panic, Spears did not win the presidency in any weird Florida-like hanging chad business. But she did top the President-elect this year in terms of overall online search — at least at Yahoo anyway.

Amazingly, Britney Spears was the most popular search term on Yahoo for the fourth year in a row. Get this — she’s been the top searched term in seven of the last eight years.

Zero to Hero

Why? Vera Chan, senior editor of Yahoo Buzz, told the BBC it’s all about redemption. The diva was a disaster in 2007 and has tried to overcome her monstrosity of troubles in 2008 — thus the continued interest.

“She was number one last year for all the wrong reasons, and this year for all the right reasons,” Ms Chan said.

“People like redemption tales. You can’t have a public meltdown that big and not have people follow you.”

There was buzz that Obama might top the charts this year. Nope. He came in third — sandwiched between WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) and Miley Cyrus.

Filling out the top ten: the online game RuneScape in at number five, actress Jessica Alba (six), the cartoon series Naruto (seven), actresses Lindsay Lohan and Angelina Jolie (eight and nine), and reality TV talent show American Idol (ten).

Political searches

In terms of political figures, Obama was number one. Got a guess for number two?

Correct. The thrilla from Wasilla — Sarah Palin.

Now, Yahoo isn’t giving out specific figures so we don’t know how close Palin was to Obama, but we do know order of the top ten political figures searched:

1. Barack Obama
2. Sarah Palin
3. John McCain
4. Hillary Clinton
5. George Bush
6. Ron Paul
7. John Edwards
8. Mike Huckabee
9. Arnold Schwarzenegger
10. Mitt Romney

Pop love

Why does pop culture dominate search terms? Yahoo Buzz explains it this way:

“Britney or Runescape is not in the news everyday, so people go online for updates. George W. Bush, on the other hand, is in the news quite often, so people need fewer updates. Also, as a past spokesperson once explained, after you get to a level of fame, you don’t even have to do anything to maintain it.”

Happy Birthday: The Computer Mouse turns 40...

Invented by a team of researchers led by Doug Engelbart at the Stanford Research Institute in California in 1968, computer’s most dynamic input device, the “mouse”, has entered into its 40s on Monday.

The first-ever mouse was made from a wooden block with wheels mounted on its base, and featured a red button on top of its case, and a cable at its back, which probably made one of the researchers to nickname it as “mouse”.

Recollecting his memories on its name, Engelbart said, “We thought that when it had escaped out to the world it would have a more dignified name. But it didn’t.”

Though Engelbart proposed the idea in early 1960s, while studying the correlation between computers and humans, the first prototype of the device was developed in 1964, and a full-fledged working mouse was demonstrated in Fall Joint Computer Conference in San Francisco in 1968.

The first commercial version of the mouse was launched by Xerox in 1981, but the device gained recognition after Apple launched it with its Macintosh computer systems in 1984.

Since then the device has been a prominent input device for computers, but today, it is facing stringent competition from touch screen interfaces and gesture control, as offered by devices like Apple’s iPhone and Nintendo Wii.

Playing the Number Games

With a string of impressive on-field performances, including victory in the ICC World Twenty20, India has risen to become one of the world’s leading limited-overs sides.

But its recent success, first in Australia earlier this year and at home against England before last week’s terror attacks led to the cancellation of the remainder of the one-day series, may not just be down to the skills with the bat and ball. The figures may also be tilted in its favour.

Players including captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni and in-form batsman Yuvraj Singh have turned to a leading Indian numerologist to determine which squad numbers they should wear on their blue uniforms.

In numerology, numbers are keys to predicting and explaining human behaviour. Each number is assigned a characteristic of certain cosmic powers and linked to planets. Birth dates are also considered auspicious.

Sanjay B. Jumaani, a Mumbai-based numerologist, said about half a dozen members of the team have come to him to help get a psychological edge over the opposition.

“In cricket, fortune is a very important aspect, from a ball that can take a wicket or be sent to the other side of the field. That can turn the fate of the game,” says Jumaani.

Jumaani, a newspaper columnist who is also consulted by leading Bollywood stars, said the trend was set by former India captain Sourav Ganguly and spread through the team by word of mouth as his form improved.

Among those playing the numbers game is Dhoni, born on the seventh day of the seventh month of 1981. He wears No. 7 — symbolic of dynamism and communication.

Left-hander Yuvraj, who smashed England bowler Stuart Broad for six sixes in an over in the Twenty20 World Cup in South Africa, was born on the 12th day of the 12th month in 1981. He wears 12.

One plus two adds up to three, representing not only strong Jupiter and Singh’s zodiac sign, Sagittarius, but also ambition and success.

Opener Gautam Gambhir, born on October 14, 1981, is a five in numerology, which governs his zodiac sign of Libra, and symbolises dynamism. His squad number is five.

Middle-order batsman Rohit Sharma wears 45, adding up to nine — one of his three lucky numbers. Nine also represents Mars, the planet of energy and aggression.

All-rounder Irfan Pathan was advised on his squad number (63) for the same reason.

Seamer Zaheer Khan is a seven in numerology as he was born on the seventh day of October, 1978. His squad number, 34, adds up to seven.

And young seamer Ishant Sharma was told to choose 29, the first two numbers of his birth date.

No number please

Yet aggressive opener Virender Sehwag dispensed with his squad number, 44, altogether as it was “pulling him down,” said Jumaani. He has since recovered his form.

“He’s the only player in the world who does not wear any number,” said Jumaani.

Sehwag explained: “I do not believe in astrology but my family members do. Many people used to pester me and my family to use different numbers.

“I was so fed up that I decided not to take their advice. We play Test matches without numbers and hence I do not use any number on my T-shirt,” he said.