Markets Roundup:
- Markets rose broadly during the week led by financials again amidst a bunch of positive economic data, though ended with profit booking on Friday
- The rally was fuelled by the release of details on the Obama administration's plan to remove toxic assets from bank balance sheets, better than expected home sales data, and in-line reports on Q4 GDP and weekly jobless claims.
- US existing home sales rose 5.1% month-over-month in February, a dramatic jump over the expected drop of 0.9% and new home sales increased 4.7% month-over-month against an estimated drop of 2.9%
- February durable goods orders increased 3.4% month-over-month compared to the expectation of a decline of 2.5%
- The fourth quarter GDP showed a 6.3% annualized rate of contraction, which wasn't as bad as the 6.6% decline that was expected.
- Weekly initial jobless claims climbed 8,000 from the prior week to 652,000 in-line with expectations. Continuing claims climbed more than expected to a record high of 5.56 million, though.
- Rumors surfaced again that SEC is considering modifying its uptick rules
Industry Roundup:
- Tech services sector was up 1.4% during the week
- IBM has set up the first electronic medical-record exchange for the US govt, whereby the system will give the US Social Security Administration online access to health-care records for disability applicants, cutting claim processing time to minutes from months.
- IBM announced a new offering, designed as a completely outsourced turnkey solution, that enables mortgage loan servicers to process large volumes of loan modification requests with greater speed, efficiency and accuracy
- HP has won a $50 million contract from Korea’s Shinhan Bank for a technology solution to help the bank improve its return on investment, enhance its business efficiency and expand its operations
- CSC and the Association of periOperative Registered Nurses (AORN) today announced the launch of the AORN SSPN, software content for perioperative care nurses that integrates into electronic health record systems & nursing documentation systems
- CSC won a 3-year contract from United Utilities, largest water & wastewater operator in UK, to provide infrastructure services, system integration & system support
- Accenture has helped Florida’s Office of Financial Regulation (OFR) implement a significant operational & technology upgrade on-budget and ahead of schedule. The 2-year project replaced more than 20 legacy information technology systems to provide OFR with an integrated financial regulatory management system
- Accenture reported results for 2nd quarter ended Feb 28 - Revenues of $5.27 billion, a decrease of 6% year-on-year; Diluted EPS of $0.63 over $0.64 in Q2 last year; revised guidance of 0-4% growth in revenue for full year versus 6-10% earlier
- Perot won a 5-year $7.5 million contract from NASA to provide engineering, technical & program management support to NASA's Office of the Chief Engineer
- Telstra Corp. has ended one of its IT outsourcing contracts with IBM and has given it to Infosys; less than a week ago, Telstra had terminated its contract with Satyam and awarded it to EDS. This is part of its consolidation of its outsourcing partners from four (IBM, EDS, Satyam, Infy) to two (Infy, EDS)
- Infosys has launched a program where it has its top employees an option to work with a non-profit organization for a year but continue to earn half their income.
- WorkLight Inc and TCS have partnered to provide companies the ability to securely engage customers, partners and employees through consumer Web 2.0 tools
- ATCO has entered into a strategic relationship with Wipro to provide joint delivery of some customer care services and to pursue new opportunities in the utility business process outsourcing market
- Satyam won a contract to implement SAP(R) Business All-in-One solutions for Vijay Dairy & Farm Products, one of the leading dairy processors in India; meanwhile UN plans to terminate its outsourcing contracts with Satyam and to bar the outsourcer from bidding on future work
- HCL has entered into a three year contract with MJ Logistic Services, a leading third-party logistics solutions provider in India
- Patni announced signing two $10 million deals in Japan (one with Hitachi) in the recent past and said that it is witnessing increased traction in the region where it has close to 1,100 employees
- ACS announced the transition of about 500 of its US employees working primarily in the IT services space to Patni
Markets Roundup:
- Markets lost the ground gained during the week by Friday, financial stocks being the largest mover again this week followed by commodities
- Barclays said it had a strong start in '09, echoing similar comments made last week by C, BAC and JPM, while HSBC indicated that it does not need more capital
- February housing starts hit an annualized rate of 583,000, up from record lows and above the rate of 450,000 starts that was expected. Meanwhile, February building permits hit an annualized rate of 547,000, which is above the 500,000 that was expected
- Federal Reserve announced that it will pump an extra $1 trillion into the financial system by purchasing Treasury bonds and mortgage securities
- Investors booked profits and turned more cautious on concerns that Fed’s injection of another $1 trillion into the ailing financial system could spark inflation in future
Industry Roundup:
- Tech services sector up 1% during the week as markets were not focused on the sector
- Sun Microsystems surged 78% on report of IBM takeover bid
- IBM today announced that Travelport has selected IBM to assist in the modernization and consolidation of its data centers into a single, Atlanta-based facility
- HP today announced that Choice Hotels selected the HP Compliance Log Warehouse (CLW) 2.0, a software that provides real-time collection, storage and retrieval of network activity logs to detect unusual events that could lead to a security breach, to address regulatory demands and reduce risk to Choice’s business
- HP, in partnership with Indian Institute of Hardware Technology announced the launch of ‘HP Software University’ (HPSU), a first of its kind program in the non-enterprise training space aiming to address the growing demand of software testing professionals in India
- CSC won a $29 million contract for support services for the operation, maintenance, support and management of the OCONUS Navy Enterprise Network
- Putting an end to about 8 months of waiting, TCS has finally decided to complete the process of bringing on board the campus recruits of 2008 by this month
- HCL has signed a $350 million outsourcing contract with Reader's Digest, where HCL would provide application development and infrastructure support across the application stack of Oracle, open technologies, main frame, infrastructure support for network, security, storage, end user computing and data centres
- Infosys is deploying about 10% of its 100,000 employees on internal projects involving writing programming code for human resource systems, invoicing systems, inter-departmental communication systems and training curriculum
- Perot announced the 10-year extension to its agreement with Swiss Re, under which it will continue to provide ongoing administrative & business process services, including support for new Swiss Re acquisitions, customer service & transaction processing through Perot Systems LifeSys full service policy administration platform
- Genpact announced that it has been positioned by Gartner, Inc. in the Challengers quadrant of its ‘Magic Quadrant for Help Desk Outsourcing, North America’
- Wipro announced implementation of Oracle eBusiness Suite (EBS) 11i with multi lingual support in both in English and Spanish for Flex Americas (subsidiary of Uflex Ltd, India) in Mexico
- Wipro has won a major contract with the University of Canberra to handle its IT, student admission, payroll and finance functions
- The Employees State Insurance Corporation (ESIC), has signed a Rs 1,182-crore contract with Wipro for converting its paper-based administrative and operational system into a paperless E-governance system
- HDFC Mutual Fund has raised its stake in Patni Computer Systems to 5.18 per cent by acquiring additional 50 lakh shares for about Rs 55 crore from the open market
- On Mar 20 Fitch Ratings withdrew its AAA ratings of Tech Mahindra stating the uncertainties regarding TML’s Satyam bid; On Mar 21 Tech Mahindra announced that CARE has assigned its highest credit rating of AAA to TML
Markets Roundup:
- Markets recovered over the week, after falling below 7,000 first time since 1997, driven by financial stocks
- Rally was triggered by Citi when they said that it was profitable in the first two months of '09 and would not need additional funds from government; JPM & Bank of America also stated they were profitable for the 2 months
- Reports also surfaced that US regulators are considering reinstating the uptick rule to slow the pace of short selling
- February retail sales declined 0.1%, better than the 0.5% decline that was expected
- Economic reports showed a slight rise in consumer sentiment and a narrowing in the US trade gap
Industry Roundup:
- Tech services sector up 6% last week as markets recovered
- Accenture ranked 49 among the most admired companies in twelfth annual rankings of FORTUNE World’s Most Admired Companies (WMACs) list
- Accenture has extended its contract to provide RSA UK with insurance BPO services (front-line customer service & back-office administration services)
- TCS announced the signing of a multi-year contract with Infineon Technologies, one of the leading semiconductor manufacturers, to operate and maintain solutions within the Infineon's Supply Chain Management (SCM) landscape
- TCS said that it will lay off less than 1% of its staff as it seeks to control costs amid the global economic slowdown
- Infosys said it has completed absorbing all 20,000 engineering students who graduated last year and to whom it had made job offers on campus
- HCL Technologies signed a $80 million end-to-end IT Services engagement covering the entire IT lifecycle from transformation to integration and operations management with National Insurance Company Ltd. (NIC) for a period of 7 years
- Wipro has won Rs 1,182 crore IT outsourcing contract from Employees State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) beating TCS and Infosys
- Wipro signed a three-year contract for the provision of IT Application Development and Support services with Friends Provident
- Syntel announced regular quarterly dividend of $0.06 per share
- EXL announced 2008 results – Revenue up 20% to $181.7 million, EPS of $0.38 per share from $0.60 last year due to $9.3million of forex losses, guided revenue to be between $170 million to $175 million for 2009
Markets Roundup:
- Stocks fell sharply and broadly during the week, depressed by investors' ongoing worries about the global economy and financial sector
- Dow Jones Index fell below 7,000 for the first time since 1997
- Stocks rose on Wednesday based on reports that Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao may announce new economic stimulus measures and higher commodities prices (with the exception of gold), though lost more ground on Thursday
- Mixed reaction to US unemployment data for February announced on Friday - nonfarm payroll fell 651,000 and unemployment rate rose to 8.1% in line with consensus estimates
- AIG's posted the largest loss in US corporate history of $62 billion in the fourth quarter and received fresh bailout money
- Automakers posted weak Feb sales
- Berkshire Hathaway reported its worst year ever and Warren Buffett commented that the economy is in “shambles” for 2009
Industry Roundup:
- Tech services sector fell 9% last week amidst noises of anti-offshoring legislations
- Wachovia downgraded Cognizant, Infosys, Syntel and Wipro to Underperform
- ET reported that as most of the clients from U.S. and Europe are tightening their IT budget and seek to renegotiate the existing contracts, Indian IT firms such as TCS, Infosys, Wipro and HCL are forced to sign new outsourcing contracts at 15-20 percent lower billing rates than last year
- IBM announced creation of software, Sametime 3D, for holding face-to-face meetings in virtual world
- Accenture announced laying off almost half its workforce of around 1,000 in the Philippine capital of Manila due to the effects of the global financial crisis
- HP CEO Mark Hurd said he sees “caution in the air” and reiterated a prediction that technology demand won’t improve the rest of the year
- HP announced more than a dozen products, solutions and services aimed at small- to medium-sized businesses, as part of the company's Total Care initiative aimed at midmarket companies
- Infosys says new projects momentum has come down and witnessing pricing pressures. Infosys completed absorbing all 20,000 campus offers made last year.
- Satyam announced that it has received approval from SEBI to facilitate a global competitive bidding process, contemplates the selection of an investor to acquire a 51% interest in the Company; IBM said to be leading the race
- Patni announced that it has formed a local SAP services partnership with SAP Japan aimed at the Japanese market
- Syntel announced that it has signed a partnership agreement with Global Analytics to provide bankcard fraud detection services for its customers worldwide
- Genpact to host Investor Day on March 17
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