Shares of Oil and gas firms declined after drill setback

Shares in three oil and gas firms that are active in the North Sea declined following a disappointing update on drilling in an area where they have made big finds.


Nautical Petroleum, Encore Oil and Premier Oil lost ground following the Catcher North well in the Central North Sea finding a less hopeful oil and gas bearing area than expected.


The results of the well had been eagerly projected after the success of the Catcher and Catcher East wells in the last year.
Sector watchers stated that the first Catcher find was the biggest oil discovery in the North Sea for decades when it was made in the month of June.

WOLFSON Microelectronics, the manufacturer of chips for many of the world’s must-have electronic devices, sharply narrowed its 2010 losses, indicating that the Scottish firm’s drive into the fast-growing smartphone, gaming and e-book sectors has set it firmly on the road to recovery.

The chief executive, of the Edinburgh-based company, Mike Hickey yesterday also told The Herald he was quite comfortable with expectations that Wolfson would break back into a full-year profit by the end of 2011.

The company very recently has suffered from difficult times in the electronics market and could not bag a major contract of Apple. The firm, yesterday posted pre-tax losses of $11.2 million (£6.9m) for the year upto 2, January compared with a $14.8m loss for the fifty three weeks to January 3, 2009.

Interest rates kept same despite of rising inflation

The monetary committee of the Bank of England decided to keep the interest rates at 0.5% which is a 315 year low notwithstanding the rising inflation which drew stern criticism from all quarters. The bank also decided to go on with its program of quantitative erasing, which is nothing but injecting money directly into the economy to speed up the recovery process. The current amount stands roughly at 200 billion pounds.

The decision by the Bank came even though there were great pressures that demanded the rise of the interest rates to curb the growing inflation. The bank's decision instead coincided with the mixed news from the real economy. Weaker manufacturing output was reported by the Office for National statistics for the month of December.

Disappointment regarding Rio’s proposal of buyback

The proposal made by Rio Tinto has caused dissatisfaction among the investors. It has also resulted in the decline of the shares of the miners in the stock exchanges of London and Australia. In spite of bumper profits the shares of the miners have been losing grounds. There has been a huge amount of cash which has been generated as a result of booming commodities in the markets. This allowed Rio Tinto to provide returns of about five billion US dollars to the shareholders. Rio Tinto did so by buying back the shares which were priced lower in the stock exchange of London. According to the reports of global miner there has been a rise in the net profit which has tripled in the year 2010 and has reached to 14.32 billion US dollars which is a record in itself. The net profit has increased by 194 percent in terms with the previous year.

IPOs of Russia being pulled

NORD GOLD has placed its name among the Russian firms who have scrapped plans for the London IPO i. e. Initial Public Offering. NORD GOLD is the unit of gold mining under the steel giant, Severstal. The decision of the NORD GOLD to scrap its plans for the public offering led to the dejection of the Russian issuers who were already hoping for a comeback from London. Nord gold along with its peers namely the Chelpipe and the Koks were reported to be blaming the conditions of the market. There has been a renewed interest of the country being a market that is emerging. But the cancellations made in the last minute clearly show that the investors are highly concerned about the Russian IPO (Initial public Offering). It was a few hours before the Chelpipe pulled their flotation, the chairman of Chelpipe made a statement.

European Stocks Slide; Nokia, L’Oreal Decline, Michelin Gains

Feb. 11 (Bloomberg) -- European stocks dropped, erasing their gain for the week, as Nokia Oyj slumped and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak refused to step down immediately. U.S. index futures and Asian shares slid.

Nokia tumbled 8.2 percent after announcing that it will form a software partnership with Microsoft Corp. L’Oreal SA sank 5.2 percent after the world’s largest cosmetics maker reported profit that failed to beat analysts’ estimates. Michelin & Cie. climbed 1.3 percent as the world’s second-largest tiremaker announced that full-year profit exceeded analysts’ projections.

Iran's Runna Compete World Auto Markat

The Middle East's biggest automaker, Iran Khodro Company (IKCO), plans to market a high-standard national vehicle on four continents simultaneously.

The sale of Runna, the company's second national car which is fitted with a 1.6-liter engine, will begin in September 2011, Iran Khodro Industrial Group News Website reported on Wednesday.

About 150,000 units of the vehicle are expected to roll off the production line each year, 25 percent of which are headed abroad.

Javad Najmeddin, IKCO's CEO, described the vehicle as a “fair-priced car [made] based on the most recent standards.” 

Buy Call For Bhushan Steel with target price of Rs 350 : PINC Research

Bhushan Steel's Q3FY11 revenue at Rs19.4bn grew 36% YoY due to 30% surge in sales volume to 467kt, mainly on sale of 94kt of HRC from under-trial Orissa phase-II (1.9mntpa HRC). Operating profit rose 38% YoY to Rs5.4bn with OPM expanding 36bps to 27.7% as Bhushan met ~50% of HRC requirement captively. PAT rose 23% YoY to Rs2.8bn as interest, depreciation cost remained low pending capitalisation of Orissa phase-II.
Performance update: The company produced 241kt of HRC (51% CU, 60% CU now) from under-trial Orissa phase-II, with an operating cost of ~USD490/t. Blended realisation at USD926/t increased 9% YoY on higher steel prices, even though share of value added products declined to 75% vs 86% in Q3FY10 on HRC sales of 94kt.
Expansion projects: Rs65bn Orissa phase III expansion (3.0mnt of billets and 2.5mnt of HRC) is scheduled for FY13. Further, the company has announced ~1.0mnt downstream expansion along with 197MW CPP for an additional capex of Rs30bn by FY13.

Cognizant Result Review by PINC Research

Revenues grew 7.7%QoQ, higher than other large Indian IT vendors. Pricing witnessed positive surprise, onsite and offshore pricing grew 1.5%QoQ and 2%QoQ respectively.
Strong revenue growth, stable operating margins: Cognizant reported revenue growth of 7.7%QoQ (45.2%YoY) to USD1,311mn for Q4CY10, outperforming its guidance of USD1,270mn. This was led by strong volume and a positive surprise in pricing. Net income surged 43.2%YoY to USD206mn (1.2%QoQ).
Broad based growth across verticals. BFSI vertical grew 6.6%QoQ (43.2% contribution to revenue) on the back of strong demand for regulatory and compliance work, healthcare vertical surged 11.9%QoQ (24.9% contribution) which witnessed traction in services like data warehousing and analytics. Manufacturing & retail grew 5.6%QoQ (18.6% contribution).
Pricing supports operating margin: The operating margin (non GAAP) remained flattish at 18.66%. Pricing improved in this quarter led by management's constant efforts for pricing negotiations. It is expected to improve further going forward. The management expects the operating margin (non GAAP) to be in the range of 19-20% for CY11.

Meraki Announces a $15 Million Round of Funding

A $15 million round of funding has been announced by Meraki, a somewhat new Company in the cloud networking arena. Considered to be Company’s Series C, this round was reportedly led by Sequoia Capital.

Ever since the Company’s pre-economic-meltdown $20 million Series B in January 2008, it is in fact its first funding. As per sources Meraki has taken $40 million since its founding in 2006. And besides the funding the Company is also said to have declared some interesting growth metrics.

The startup has claimed that it has tripled its quarterly revenues year over year. Believed to be a record, it also says that it has 1,300 new customer wins in Q4 2010. And among its new customers are big names like Burger King, Albany State University, Mandalay Bay Convention Center and United Colors of Benetton.