Jitendra Kumar Gupta's blog

Ahluwalia Contracts, a mid size construction company, is well placed to benefit from the planned investments in the infrastructure sector, especially in urban infrastructure. Nevertheless, the company’s current order book of over Rs 5,000 crore indicates good revenue visibility for the next 2-3 years. The company’s foray into other promising areas of infrastructure construction such as power, road and water would now start reflecting in its order book and revenues leading to higher and sustainable growth in the coming years. Surprises could also come in the form of acquisitions in the near term aided by its cash balances which will strengthen its presence in other infrastructure verticals. Core competence Ahluwalia Contracts’ core strength lies in its ability to execute building construction projects on time which are not only reasonably large in size but also demand high quality of work. Some of the prestigious projects the company has executed independently include the ...

It is often said that if you want to make big money, trading in currencies or foreign exchange (forex) is the perfect place to be in. This is possible considering a very high leverage. For example, if you have just Rs 100 in your pocket, a position of about Rs 2,000 can be taken in the forex market because the margin money requirement is only 5 per cent. No wonder, one can take large positions in the market with a rather small amount. At present, domestic exchanges such as the National Stock Exchange and the Multi-Commodity Exchange offer derivatives products such as future and options in four major currencies – dollar, yen, pound and euro. And the Indian retail investor is ready to play the game. More than hedging, many retail investors are opting to trade. Even brokerages are pushing this product to clients. “About 70 per cent of the trades are done by bankers and companies. The retail segment accounts for about 25-30 per cent of the total turnover,” said Navin Mathur, associate ...

http://www.smartinvestor.in/market/exptspks-23249-exptspksdet-we_are_in_trough_phase_of_indian_sugar_cycle.htm

“Be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful” – Warren Buffett Even though Indian markets have recovered from their March 2009 lows, there are still many companies and sectors where investor interest hasn’t caught up in the same breadth. As a result, the share prices of some companies are still at depressed levels as compared to their peaks in 2008. There could be genuine concerns which in turn justify the valuations of these companies. Reasons could be weak demand, subdued margins, excess debt, heightened competition, lower capacity utilisations and so on. To put in simple words, in some of these cases due to absence of clarity over the future prospects and the financial position of the companies, the share prices continue to trade at lower levels. The positive side is that, ever since the global economic downturn and its impact on the Indian industries and companies, lot of things have changed for the better, which is also reflecting in the key ...

The steel sector's fortunes are very closely linked with growth in the economy and industrial activities in the country. The consumption of steel in India and globally has been growing over decades except for a few years of economic slowdown. For, steel is the core sector of any economy, without which growth cannot be sustained. When India's economy should grow at eight per cent and more over the next several years, a humongous amount of money has to be invested into the infrastructure and construction sector. And, steel will play a key role. DEMAND India's production has gone up from about 13 million tonnes in 1990 to 60 mt now and is further expected to reach 80 mt by the end of 2012. This is primarily due to domestic demand, helped by higher economic growth. Steel is used in various industries. About 44 per cent of what is produced in India is used in construction and infrastructure. The automobile industry accounts for another 19 per cent and the rest is ...

There is no doubt that the state of infrastructure in India is far from comparable with the same of the developed countries or even developing countries like China. Infrastructure got its due attention only in the current (11th) Five Year Plan (2007-2012) when the Planning Commission of India emphasised the need for investments worth $500 billion towards setting up of infrastructure as compared to $220 billion in 10th plan. While these estimates itself suggest the vast opportunities in the space, the Planning Commission estimates that to sustain a GDP growth rate of 8-9 per cent, investments into infrastructure will have to be stepped up to around $1,000 billion during the 12th plan period (FY2013-17). “Taking into consideration both new and latent demand, CRISIL Research estimates infrastructure expenditure across the 11 identified sectors to nearly double to Rs 32 trillion ($700 billion) over the 2009-10 to 2013-14 period. We believe that even if new demand for infrastructure across ...