February 25, 2013

Press Release No. 1

NSE organises Investothon in Rajkot to grow the equity cult

The investor run of the National Stock Exchange has been gaining strong momentum. After receiving over whelming support from the investor community and other market participants, in different cities, NSE organized an Investothon at Rajkot, the sixth fastest growing city in India on Sunday, the 24th of February.

The investor run was an initiative to create awareness among the people of Rajkot, an industrial and commercial hub of auto ancillary products and engineering goods, on safe investing. It is also a campaign to encourage people to grow their savings, by investing a portion of their finances in productive assets, for a more secure future. The Investothon is jointly organized with the CNBC TV 18 group.

The Investor run was flagged off by the city Mayor, Mr. Janak Kotak and was attended by more than 4500 people, including a large number of Corporates, investors, Member brokers and Senior NSE officials. Some of the prominent participants included Mr. Parakramsinh Jadeja, CEO, Jyoti CNC automation, Mr. Jyotindra Mehta, Chairman  Rajkot Nagrik Sahakari Bank and Mr. Mahendra Bhai Patel, Joint. MD at the Atul Auto limited. The races were held on the Race course road, circling the Veer Savarkar indoor stadium, an area which has historical significance because the ground was used by erstwhile Kings for races.

One of the races was a 6 kilometer run, named on the government’s recently announced scheme, the Rajiv Gandhi equity savings scheme, which provides tax benefits to investors, for investing in certain permitted securities and products. The second run was a three kilometer run, called the Power race. Prizes were given for the most enthusiastic team, the highest number of shareholders and for the high fives team.

NSE has been actively creating awareness on the advantages of the Rajiv Gandhi scheme through seminars, print campaigns in regional newspapers and through training of salaried employees in Corporate and government offices. Sunday’s Investothon was another opportunity to create awareness on the government scheme. In the scheme, an investor can invest in the top 100 stocks listed on NSE, Maharatna, Navratna and Mini ratna PSU stocks and exchange traded funds like Nifty ETF’s. Different asset management companies have launched mutual fund schemes, through which investors can invest and avail of the tax benefit. Other permitted securities include follow on offers of CNX 100 stocks (the top 100 stocks traded on NSE). An investor, who earns within 10 lakhs annually, can invest 50,000 in these securities and get tax benefit on half this amount.

Joint Managing Director of the National Stock exchange, Ms. Chitra Ramkrishna said “The Investothon is a campaign to encourage safe investing among the people of Rajkot, who are known for their entrepreneurial spirit and sheer capacity for creating wealth. We want to encourage people to invest a part of their idle funds, into productive assets, to secure a brighter future.”

The City Mayors Foundation, a global think tank, had recently ranked Rajkot as one of the 37 cities in India, which are part of a list of the World’s fastest growing urban areas. The city has a very large number of small, medium and large sized industries and many prominent names in the auto industry depend on Rajkot’s industrial units to supply them with diesel engines and other auto parts.

Mr. Anil Uniyal, CEO, CNBC TV18 & CNBC Awaaz said, “Such marathons are an initiative to sustain public confidence in investment and for stabilizing the future of the Indian Market. ‘Investothon 2012-13’ brought together all of Rajkot’s wealth creators on a common stage and saw very good participation from investors and other market participants.”

NSE has, through several initiatives also created awareness on products like gold exchange traded funds, which are ideal for retail investors, as they offer market returns, sans the trouble of storing physical gold. It is also possible to accumulate units of Gold ETF’s and sell them, when there is a requirement for physical gold.

There is a lot of focus on Nifty exchange traded funds as well, because they have given returns that are double of fixed deposits, over a ten year period. They are liquid, transparent to trade and provide instant diversification, since investing in one unit gives exposure to 50 stocks which constitute the CNX Nifty index.

Press Release No. 2

Market-wide Position Limit in IFCI

The derivative contracts in the underlying IFCI have crossed 95% of the market-wide position limit on February 25, 2013. It is hereby informed that all clients/ members shall trade in derivative contracts of IFCI by offsetting their existing positions till the open interest comes down to 80% of the market wide position limit.