The financial panic is over: Warren Buffett

Warren Buffett, perhaps the world's most admired investor, said on Thursday the financial panic that gripped the globe last year is a thing of the past, even as the US economy's struggles persist.

"The financial panic is behind us," the world's second-richest person said at Columbia University's business school. "Our economy was sputtering, still is sputtering some."

Buffett, 79, nevertheless said there is greater opportunity for investments inside the United States than outside, noting that the US economy is far larger than any other.

He appeared at Columbia with Microsoft Corp founder Bill Gates, the world's richest person and a Buffett friend and bridge partner.

Last month, preliminary government data showed the US economy expanded in the third quarter, the first three-month period of growth since the second quarter of 2008.

Nonetheless, the US unemployment rate last month reached 10.2%, the first double-digit reading in 26 years.

Buffett last week made a big bet on the US economy when his Berkshire Hathaway Inc agreed to pay about USD 26.4 billion for the 77% of railroad company Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp that it did not already own.

"There will be more people in this country, 10, 20, 30 years from now," Buffett said. "They'll be moving more and more goods back and forth to each other and the most environmentally friendly and cost-efficient way of doing that is railroads."

Buffett said rail transport uses one-third less fuel and pollutes the air less than trucks, and that one train can supplant about 280 trucks.

Gates, who is also a Berkshire director, said other sectors might also boost the economy over the long term, including information technology, energy and medicine.

Separately, Buffett advised the US government not to coddle companies that need bailouts to survive or preserve capital.

"More sticks are called for," he said.

Buffett gave Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner "high marks" for how they managed the financial crisis

SENSEX SLIPS 5.5%IN THIS WEEK..SENSEX ENDS BELOW 16K LEVEL,TELCOM AND REALTY CRACKS

Bears reigned the markets for the whole week and hammered the Sensex, which closed below the 16,000 mark for the first time in 36 sessions. The markets had opened higher following strong US and Asian cues but witnessed selling pressure in the second half of trade. The Nifty also touched the 4,700 mark during the day.

The 30-share BSE Sensex declined 156.44 points or 0.97%, to settle at 15,896.28, after seeing a fall of 464.6 points loss from its day's high of

Index	Closing Value	Today's Chg (%)	Weekly Chg (%)
REALTY	3827.13	0.17	-15.38
METAL	13940.17	0.25	-9.60
BANKEX	9336.16	0.49	-8.75
SMALLCAP	7058.72	-0.77	-8.01
MIDCAP	6014.3	-0.54	-7.63
POWER	2914.62	-1.49	-7.11
OIL&GAS	9434.43	-2.79	-5.72
NIFTY	4711.7	-0.82	-5.71
TECk	2855.37	-1.93	-5.57
SENSEX	15896.28	-0.97	-5.44
CAP GOODS	12873.48	-0.46	-4.27
AUTO	6307.2	0.94	-2.47
IT	4425.52	-0.49	-2.27
PHARMA	4377.2	-0.89	-0.56
FMCG	2808.97	-0.6	-0.56

16,360.88. The 50-share NSE Nifty touched an intraday low of 4687.50 and corrected nearly 142 points from its day's high of 4853.65. It slipped 0.82% or 38.85 points, to close at 4711.70. The benchmark indices plunged 5.44% and 5.7% in five days, respectively.

In a crucial fallout of Central Bureau of Investigation’s (CBI) probe into the alleged 2G spectrum allocation scam, work on allocation of spectrum to all existing operators — including Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Essar, Idea, Reliance Communications among others — has stopped at the Department of Telecom (DoT), reports CNBC-TV18’s. Reliance Communication, Bharti Airtel and Idea Cellular plunged 6-7.4%. Bharti Airtel is awaiting 2G Spectrum in 10 circles.

Another factor was Bharti Airtel's Q2 numbers, which were disappointing. The company’s net profit declined 7.8% to Rs 2,321 crore and total revenues slipped 0.97% to Rs 9,845 crore, QoQ while CNBC-TV18 expected net profit at Rs 2,401.2 crore and total revenues at Rs 10,218.4 crore.

Sanjay Chawla of Anand Rathi Securities said, "The mobile segment results are almost mirroring what Idea has reported. So, in that sense we were not surprised given that Idea’s numbers were also weak and the stock has already reacted, there was little room for disappointment. But having said that, on an absolute basis, the numbers are quite weak."

Reliance Industries (RIL) also reported Q2 numbers, which were below estimates. The stock was down 3.4% today. Its net profit went down 6.55% to Rs 3,852 crore while estimates were at Rs 4,081 crore and net sales increased 4.6% to Rs 46,848 crore while estimates were at Rs 49,190 crore.

Today's listing, Indiabulls Power ended its first trading session at a hefty discount of 15.11% to its issue price of Rs 45. The share closed at Rs 38.20 on the NSE

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Brokerages may not be ready for extended trading hours by SEBI

There is great conflict between brokrages firm for implimentation of extended trading hour.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has allowed the stock exchanges to extend trading hours of equity markets. With the green signal, stock exchanges are now allowed to start trading at 9am and close the bell at 5pm. Currently, India’s exchanges operate between 9.55 am and 3.30 pm.

Experts say the move is aimed at aligning Indian stock markets with international ones in a bid to woo more trades and also counter the emerging Singapore Exchange Limited’s (SGX) Nifty, which opens sooner (7am India time) than the National Stock Exchange’s (NSE) Nifty. Trading

volumes may go by about 10–15% as a consequence of the extended hours, he adds. “Another plus point I can see is that volatility may come down,” says Portfolio Manager PN Vijay, though he adds that such long hours were not justified and that exchanges should consider working from 9am to 4pm.

However, Thakkar of Angel Broking disagrees. “The cost escalation would be offset because of additional revenue stream that we will get,” he says.

“People will get used to it,” says Jain of India Infoline. “The way technology is progressing, maybe next few years time we may see 24/7 market. In the US, you don’t have to go through exchanges because certain markets are beyond exchanges too. I think things will move in that direction and brokers and all of us will get used to it and we will need to adapt our systems and infrastructure to that.”