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US dollar mixed as traders eye manufacturing and housing data

The US dollar was trading with mixed results yesterday after traders began to hedge on their euro positions given the recent economic news vacuum in the euro zone. The Strauss-Kahn affair has overshadowed much of the positive comments coming out of the ECOFIN meetings and for that reason traders have tried to balance between European debt woes and interest rate differentials. This dynamic has generated a range-trading pattern for several major currencies, including the dollar.


Economic figures out of the United States have also been partially behind this flatter movement. Monday's TIC long-term purchases figure was well below expectations, as were Tuesday's housing figures. But yesterday's flattening out in US oil stockpiles may have given a short bump to the greenback as traders assumed higher consumption by industry ahead of today's manufacturing figure out of Philadelphia. The Fed's recent policy minutes also signaled healthier growth and relatively hawkish statements about interest rates.


As for today, the euro zone remains absent during the week-long ECOFIN meeting, but the US is scheduled for a heavy news day. To kick things off, the US Department of Labor will publish its weekly unemployment claims figure at 13:30 GMT which may show fewer applications for unemployment benefits than were seen last week.


Shortly thereafter will be the publication of important housing figures followed by the Philly Fed Manufacturing Index and Mortgage Banker Association's report on mortgage delinquencies. All in all, the USD should see some heavy volatility today, but if traders continue to hedge while awaiting more news out of Europe, the dollar may continue to see mixed results.


Source: FOREXYARD

Toyota launches Etios Liva at Rs 3.99 lakh, may trigger price war

Etios Liva, Toyota's new small car for India, which was launched in New Delhi on Monday, is all set to face tremendous competition in the coming months. With a starting price of just Rs 3.99 lakhs and going up to Rs 5.99 lakh, Etios Liva will be taking all major car companies head on.

CHECK OUT: Liva's competition in the market 

The much-awaited launch was followed up to the last hour, even as media reports suggested the brochure of the launch got leaked on Sunday. However, not much damage seemed to have been done since the specs were on lines of expectations.

Japanese car maker Toyota Kirloskar had earlier deferred the launch of Liva in April. However, with the overwhelming response it got for its sedan Etios, Toyota brought forward the launch date to June, to reduce the long waiting period for the car.

Liva is essentially a hatchback version of the car which will be seen with a smaller 1.2-litre petrol engine and soon a 1.4-litre diesel as well.

MUST READ: Etios threatens others in sedan segment

Toyota Motor's Indian unit expects to sell more than 1,00,000 Etios sedans and hatchbacks in 2012, Sandeep Singh, deputy managing director of Toyota Kirloskar, said.

Liva will be available in four variants - J, G, V and VX, and just like it's sedan sibling (Etios), it will come with a cooled 13 liter glovebox that will be common to all the variants.

The new car in the hatchback segment produces 80 Bhp power and 104 Nm torque output. The high point doing the rounds is the ARAI certified 18.31 KMPL fuel economy, which is expected to really move things for Toyota - given the rising petrol prices and the Etios Liva Diesel entering the market only by the end of the year.

"With Liva, we will now be a complete manufacturer in India, offering a full range of products including the luxury SUV Prado...Liva is a very useful stylish and dynamic car," Toyota Kirloskar Motor Managing Director Hiroshi Nakagawa told reporters in the national capital.

Keeping the target customer in mind, the auto major has lined up a slew of youthful activities as part Liva's marketing campaign. The show stopper is the TV ad campaign, featuring music composed by A R Rahman.

India is one of the largest markets for small cars and it is not difficult to see why. The high cost of owning and running vehicles and a lack of basic road infrastructure has ensured that one of the world's most populous countries has not yet caught on with the automotive revolution.

The concept vehicles of the Etios and Etios Liva were first unveiled at the Auto Expo last year in Delhi, creating a buzz, and later traveled across the country with the 'Toyota Q-World' - reaching out to more than 1 lakh prospective customers.

FIRST LOOK: Pictures from the auto expo 

Japan's earthquake and tsunami in March have pushed the Honda Brio project back slightly but rest assured, everything is back on track. Honda expects to launch the Brio in the festive season.

One cannot mention small cars and not talk about the Maruti Suzuki, the king of small cars. While the company is going through its share of problems, its plan of introducing the new Swift remains unchanged, though it might be delayed in the current circumstances.

Maruti's arch rival Hyundai is also gearing up launch the i10 in its diesel avatar, with a small 1.2- litre engine.

Also jumping on to the diesel bandwagon is the Chevrolet from General Motors India with its Beat model. Beat has done well for the company with its sharp styling and low maintenance.

Indians look to Anna Hazare's village for inspiration

(Reuters) - Clad in white home-spun garments and living in a spartan room of his village's Hindu temple, Anna Hazare is an unlikely thorn in the side of the government hundreds of miles away in New Delhi.


And yet for millions of Indians, he is a 21st-century Mahatma Gandhi, inspiring a rare wave of protests against the spiralling corruption that has tarnished the up-and-coming image of Asia's third-largest economy.


(For pictures of Anna Hazare's village, click here)


Like Gandhi, who led India's independence movement through peaceful resistance, Hazare plans to go on a hunger strike -- unto death if necessary -- to press his cause. He says his fast from Aug. 16 will continue until the government passes a tough anti-graft law that has already been decades in the making.


Hazare rose to fame for lifting Ralegan Siddhi, a once-obscure village nestled in the hills of Maharashtra, out of grinding poverty.


The question for many is whether his activism will grow from its humble beginnings across the fast-urbanising nation of 1.2 billion people whose middle class is fed up with constant bribes, poor basic services and unaccountable leaders.


All the signs are that it will. Spontaneous protests have mushroomed across the country in recent months and, unusually, they have been driven by young and old, rich and poor.


Indians of all walks of life are tired of reading news reports of officials with meagre salaries caught with bags full of cash or registered as owners of multi-million-dollar homes.


"When people exhaust their capacity for tolerance, then you should take it that it is a beginning of some kind of revolution," 73-year-old Hazare told Reuters in an interview from his village, shaking a raised index finger.


HUNGER STRIKES


Hazare carried out a successful fast in April, striking a chord with millions of Indians and forcing the government to agree to create the country's first independent ombudsman who could investigate ministers and bureaucrats. The government is so far resisting the demand to include the prime minister and judges in the ombudsman's remit.


Then, this month, yoga guru Swami Ramdev and thousands of his followers staged a mass hunger strike in New Delhi to demand reforms, including the death penalty for corrupt officials. Dozens were injured when the government sent a phalanx of police in with batons and tear gas to break up their peaceful protest.


The shambolic climax of Ramdev's protest was the latest embarrassment for the Congress party-led government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, after allegations of kickbacks when New Delhi hosted the Commonwealth Games and a mobile phone licences scam that may have cost the state up to $39 billion in revenues.


India ranked 87 in Transparency International's index on corruption in 2010 in which Denmark, New Zealand and Singapore came joint first.


Global consultancy firm KPMG said in a report in March that bribery and corruption were a growing menace that could stunt India's economic growth -- set to reach 8.5 percent in 2011/12 -- and its image to the world.


"FROM SILENT ANGER TO VOCAL REVOLUTION"


Ralegan Siddhi was once like so many Indian villages: dogged by poverty, illiteracy, water scarcity and illegal liquor dens preying on the poor and vulnerable.


After retiring from the army, Hazare returned home to change all that. Four decades later, the lush village is a model for sustainable development and government, illustrating what civil society can achieve and the failure of the state.


"Gandhi used to say if you have to reform the nation, you have to reform its villages," said Hazare.


Hazare's hefty social activism has already been felt well beyond Ralegan Siddhi, transforming other villages, putting corrupt officials behind bars or out of a job and catching the imagination of the masses. In private, politicians are starting to worry that his brand of activism could even spark an Indian version of the Arab Spring.


India has a long history of civil movements, topped by Gandhi's that lead to the end of British imperial rule. India's decentralised political system, which gives most powers to the 28 states, and diverse population separated by caste, religion and geography, have often limited movements from spreading.


Political activism has traditionally been aligned to political parties that pay people to protest on their behalf. Almost half of the country's population are farmers, many live on state subsidies and are reluctant to challenge local or federal governments over corruption.


"The common man was strangulated. Indian mentality was 'Goonda Raj', which meant 'rule by thuggery'. If you went on the street to protest you'd be beaten up by politicians' henchmen," said Vinita Deshmukh, a leading social activist and journalist.


"The Indian psyche has changed. From silent anger we now have a vocal, social revolution starting and Hazare has had a big influence here."


Singh and Congress party leader Sonia Gandhi, current torch-bearer of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty, have largely remained silent on the discontent. Congress has long won its support from rural India and is only now challenged by a more vocal middle class.


ASSERTIVE MIDDLE CLASS


That middle class will swell to 267 million people by 2016, from 160 million today, and will account for almost 40 percent of the population after 15 years, according to a report by the National Council for Applied Economic Research.


"I support civil society speaking up, raising its voice," Home Minister P. Chidambaram said this month. "But I do not support elected representatives yielding their obligations and responsibilities to civil society representatives. Let's remember that the foundation of this country is parliamentary democracy."


But R.V. Krishnan, a businessman and president of the Professional Party of India, which was set up to promote good governance, welcomed the new activism as a necessary step to lift India out of the ranks of third-word nations.


"The Anna movement has taken us in the right direction because it is bringing people together through a cause," he said.


There are signs of activism like Hazare's in urban centres such as Pune, a vibrant city with a growing middle class on the western coast, with people taking on officials in the police and corporations and Maharashtra state's chief minister himself.


Lavasa, a multi-billion-dollar private hill city being developed near Pune and financial hub Mumbai, is a case in point. There, activists forced the state to halt building work over allegations that environmental laws had been violated.


Students are also more assertive.


"Look outside and you quickly see politicians are corrupt, and not doing their job. I want to improve things and if I can others will follow, like they follow Anna," said Vedant Naik, a law student at Pune University. "Awareness is there, now the next step is taking action."


(Additional reporting by Ketan Bondre in Ralegan Siddhi and Henry Foy in New Delhi; Editing by John Chalmers)

Seems to be the moment of reckoning for local broking firms

During the bull market of 2007-08, Japan's Nomura was widely tipped to acquire Enam for USD 1 billion. In November last year, Enam eventually sold its investment banking and equity businesses to Axis Bank for Rs 2067 crore (roughly USD 460 million). At that time, many felt it was a big come down for the Enam promoters, having had to settle for less than half the valuation it was said to command some three years ago. But eight months on, it appears as though Enam founders Vallabh Bhansali and Nemish Shah could not have hoped for a better timing to the deal.
Promoters of quite a few domestic brokerages are said to be doing the rounds of banks and private equity firms, hoping to sell a strategic stake to them, or even the entire business. And despite most of these firms available at less than the book value, buyers are not forthcoming. And in cases where they have shown interest, the bids are way below what the brokerages are quoting.
Over the weekend, Rakesh Jhunjhunwala-promoted Alchemy Group closed down its institutional broking business, which gets its revenues from executing share trades for foreign and domestic institutional investors.
Market buzz is that Alchemy was in talks to sell the business to a foreign brokerage which had acquired a leading retail broking chain some years back. But the parties could not reach a mutually agreeable price, and the business had to be shuttered.
Likewise, most domestic brokerages with an institutional broking division have been feeling the heat for a while now. Some of the listed entities are hanging on, because of deeper pockets compared to many of their weaker rivals, and also in the hope that there will be less competition when things start looking. But many brokerages are unlikely to survive the current downturn in the market.
And even some of the large listed players are trying to figure out ways to have a meaningful presence in the institutional broking business. That is because the institutional broking pie has not grown in the last four years, and competition from foreign firms has been fierce.
Have a look at these numbers. In calendar 2007—the peak of the bull run—gross purchases and sales of Indian shares by foreign funds totaled over Rs 15.39 lakh crore, with net inflows being around USD 15 billion.
Brokerages make a commission of anywhere between 0.20-0.35% on a cash market transaction, and barely 0.01% on an equity derivative trade.
In 2010, foreign funds net invested a record USD 30 billion into Indian shares, but the gross turnover (purchase + sales) was Rs 14.94 lakh crore, lower than what it was in 2007.
Similar was the trend in gross mutual fund transactions. In 2007, gross turnover of local mutual funds was Rs 3.6 lakh crore. In 2010, that figure was 3.47 lakh crore.
Calendar year
FII gross turnover       (Rs crore)
MF gross turnover (Rs crore)
2006
8,40,327
2,42,434
2007
15,39,394
3,60,172
2008
14,94,567
3,38,241
2009
11,66,641
3,70,117
2010
14,02,513
3,47,937
Till Jun 23,  2011
72,586
13,534

Undoubtedly, that is bad news for the broking firms, which have seen their cost structures rising during this period, and the entry of new foreign players.
In 2007, it was felt that domestic brokerages had finally come into their own, after having played second fiddle to their foreign rivals for many years.
Players like Motilal Oswal Securities, IIFL (formerly India Infoline) and Edelweiss Capital raised capital through initial offerings, and were able to hire the best of talent through a combination of competitive salaries and stock options. IIFL set the benchmark when it hired four senior level executives from foreign brokerage CLSA for a compensation package till then unheard among local broking firms.
Some of the unlisted players like Anand Rathi and Antique Stock Broking too were able to attract staff from foreign broking houses by paying handsome bonuses and sweat equity.
Many market experts had predicted that foreign brokerages would eventually be marginalised, as they would lose talent to their domestic rivals.  Also, raising capital was no longer a hurdle for local brokerages. The listed ones could raise money through institutional investors, and there were plenty of private equity investors wanting to invest in the unlisted players.
But the scene has dramatically changed now. Domestic brokerages have managed to retain their key personnel, but are in constant fear of losing them to aggressive foreign brokerages desperate to flag off operations in India. Sagging share prices means it is no longer to hire senior executives with stock options as the carrot.
Raising capital is no longer easy, for both listed and unlisted players. And it is difficult to have a meaningful presence in the institutional broking space without a strong balance sheet. After all, the ability to do large trades depends on the balance sheet size, as it would mean having to deposit bigger margins with the stock exchanges. Besides, the foreign funds have to be convinced that the brokerage has financial muscle to be trusted with large transactions, the payments for which will be made only after the trade is executed.

The bigger players will survive this downturn, like they have survived similar ones earlier. But whether they will emerge in the same form as before is the key question.

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Bharti Airtel may cut 2,000 jobs

Bharti Airtel has embarked on a restructuring exercise that will merge three separate businesses, triggering a large-scale job cull for the first time in the services sector since the 2008 economic slowdown.

Under this exercise, Bharti Airtel plans to merge its mobile, satellite TV ( DTH), and fixed-line & broadband telemedia business, which jointly account for about 90% of the company's revenues and the vast majority of its workforce, into a single entity.

The merger, ostensibly aimed at cutting costs and boosting efficiency at the country's biggest telecom operator at a time of falling profits, is expected to lead to big job losses, with estimates putting the number at more than 2,000.

Bharti's move could provide the trigger for similar action at rivals, many of whom are battling identical issues-debt burden, slowing growth and high marketing spends amid cut-price tariffs. Several Bharti executives and others familiar with the company's plans told ET that managers had been told to cut positions in their teams and that the merger would create large-scale redundancies.

"The estimate is that up to 25% of the 11,500 or so positions in the three verticals will be axed. The process has already started," said one company executive who has been asked to bring down the number of his direct reports. Another executive based out of Airtel's Delhi office said "the brunt of the merger will be felt across all levels", noting that each of the three business verticals has separate teams for sales, product, strategy, human resources and finance, all led by separate CEOs.

A third employee said: "Employees were being sounded out about the restructuring, which on completion could impact 20-30% of Airtel's 16,830 employees in the country, including in its enterprise business." The enterprise arm is Bharti Airtel's fourth business division, serving corporates and small & medium businesses and also responsible for its undersea cable offerings.

Bharti, in its response to specific queries sent by ET, confirmed the restructuring, but said it would have "minimal impact on people". "As and when any change is planned, the same will be done in the interest of all stakeholders and shared in an open and transparent manner."

Co unlikely to go for mass sackings

The company said it had pioneered what it called the "strategic outsourcing model", in which key functions such as networks, technology and customer services are managed not by the company, but by specialist vendors. "Such initiatives wherever and whenever appropriate will find favour at Bharti. Scale and agility backed by synergies and business efficiencies have been the hallmark of Bharti Airtel's growth story.

All these are an intrinsic part of our DNA and have always guided our growth strategy over time," it said. While large-scale job cuts were certain, the executives who spoke to ET said the company was unlikely to resort to mass sackings, and a vast majority of affected employees would be offered opportunities to work in the group's other businesses and in its Africa operations.

"Nobody will directly be asked to leave," one executive at the company's corporate office said, but added that the sheer discomfort in taking up some of the available options could result in scores of employees leaving the firm.

Another Airtel executive, who did not want to be named, confirmed that employees affected by the merger would be offered opportunities to move to "similar functions within group companies that handle telecom infrastructure, agriculture, retail, value-added services as well as its mobile businesses in 16 African countries". Bharti is no stranger to shedding employees, having "outsourced" thousands of its employees in past years to vendors such as Ericsson, Alcatel-Lucent, Nokia Siemens and IBM.

Indeed, its outsourcing strategy, which helped it ramp up operations aggressively during its growth phase while keeping a tight grip on costs in a intensely competitive market with cut-price tariffs, has been acclaimed and adopted by telecom operators around the world.

The last such big transfer of employees happened in 2009-10 when Alcatel Lucent took on its rolls more than 4,000 employees from Bharti as part of a deal to manage its landline and fibre businesses. Analysts said the latest restructuring was necessary for Bharti.

"It is a defensive step to cut costs and increase profitability, margins and also sustain its revenue market share," said an analyst with a Mumbai-based brokerage house, requesting anonymity. The company, which has dominated India's mobile revolution for much of the last decade, has been of late struggling to repeat its performance of yesteryears.

India's mobile market, especially in cities, is saturated, with as many as nine operators in each telecom circle fighting for customers and, in the process, pushing down tariffs. Its big bet on next-generation 3G services, which have saddled it with large amounts of debt, is yet to pay off significantly while its ambitious foray into Africa is largely seen as a drag on its performance.

Last month, Bharti posted its fifth straight drop in quarterly profits, weighed down by the African operations. It was one of only three operators to have lost revenue market share in the last fiscal year, the other two being Reliance Communications and BSNL. While these three operators posted a more than 1% decline in revenue market share, others, notably Idea Cellular, Vodafone Essar, Aircel and Tata Teleservices, managed to increase their shares by 60-80 basis points.

These operators also enjoyed significant gains in their overall revenues last year-Aircel's mobile revenues for the year to end-March surged 36%' Tata Teleservices recorded a 22.2% jump; Idea Cellular's sales were up 19.4%; and Vodafone's sales rose 15%, data released by regulator TRAI showed. Bharti Airtel recorded a 7.2% increase in mobile services revenues, underperforming its rivals and also the wider market that grew at 12%.