The President of Brazil, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is visiting India to strengthen and expand economic ties. Two nations are working to expand economic relationship and have formed a common position on major global issues, as part of the G20 group of developing countries.

Trading highlights

Reliance Capital was the most-active stock with a turnover of Rs 143.80 crore followed by MIC Electronics and Indiabulls Real.

Advancers

Following robust global copper prices, Hindalco rallied to a high of Rs 156 also on takeover specualtion. The stock eventually pared gains and finished 4% higher at Rs 147. Hindalco is holding talks with Sterlite Industries to offer separate bids for Alcan of Canada.

SBI and ITC surged 2% each to Rs 1,407 and Rs 165, respectively. SBI rallied on a likely government decision to buy from RBI 59.7% stake of the Reserve Bank in SBI in a deal worth Rs 40,000 crore.

Other banks also advanced in sympathy. ICICI Bank finished 0.6% higher at Rs 933 and HDFC bank ended over 1% higher at Rs 1,165. NTPC and Dr.Reddy''s gained 1% each at Rs 160 and Rs 655, respectively.

Decliners

Tata Motors lost nearly 5% to Rs 711.The company announced that May month sales were down 4% to 42,558 units and commercial vehicle sales dipped to 20,675 units in May 2007 from 21,903 units in May 2006. Passenger vehicle sales declined 3% at 17,580 units in May 2007. Grasim lost 3.2% to Rs 2,440 and BHEL shed 3% to Rs 1,372.

IT stocks dipped on the sustained rupee appreciation. Satyam lost 2.3% to Rs 467, TCS was down 1.2% to Rs 1,204 and Infosys was off 1% to Rs 1,916. Index heavy Reliance Industries lost 0.6% to Rs 1,750.


6:30AM European markets are higher Monday on Segro and Vodafone.

European markets are higher on Monday. By mid-day, the German DAX Xetra traded up 0.2% at 8,005.18, a high not reached since March 2000, the French CAC-40 index lost 0.2% at 6,158.41 and the U.K. FTSE 100 index added 0.1% at 6,684.20.

Advancers

U.K. real estate investment company Segro, known before as Slough Estates, supported the U.K. index with a 1.1% share increase, after it said that it is selling Slough Estates USA, a life sciences real estate business, to Health Care Property Investors.

Vodafone Group, the world largest mobile-phone company, climbed 0.5% also helping the market. The German group ThyssenKrupp rose 2% and helped German XetraDax to rise.

Decliners

Insurance company AXA lost 0.1% after it said that it intends to withdraw form the Netherlands market by selling its operations there to SNS Reaal for 1.75 billion euros, or $2.35 billion.

J.P. Morgan downgraded the European investment banking sector to underweight from neutral and also reduced Deutsche Bank to underweight from neutral and BNP Paribas to neutral from overweight. Deutsche Bank shares shed 0.6%, while BNP Paribas lost 0.7%.

Commodites