(MarketWatch) -- Shares of Japanese banks managed gains early Thursday despite Fitch ratings' announcement earlier that it may cut its assessments of the country's three biggest banks due to concerns about their profitability.
The credit ratings agency said it placed Mizuho Financial Group, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group and some of their subsidiaries on negative ratings watch, indicating it sees a greater potential for cutting their ratings.
"The rating actions reflect Fitch's concern about increasing downward pressure on the major bank groups' individual financial strengths as asset quality, capital quality, and core business profitability continue to be negatively impacted by the macroeconomic recession," Fitch said in a statement.
Despite the action, Mitsubishi UFJ was up 0.4%, Mizuho rose 1%, and Sumitomo Mitsui added 0.8% in the first hour of trading.
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Wednesday, April 15, 2009
India telecom shares lag strong subscriber growth
(MarketWatch) -- India may be the fastest growing market for mobile services in the world, but intense competition and the resulting fall in subscriber rates are slowing down providers' earnings growth and hurting their share performance.
Shares of India's largest mobile operator by subscribers, Bharti Airtel, are down nearly 5% so far in 2009, while those of the second-largest company, Reliance Communications , are about flat. By comparison, the 30-stock Sensex is up more than 16% during the same period.
The underperformance comes despite strong growth in subscriber additions in the world's second-most populous country, where only about a third of the people use a mobile phone.
Indian mobile operators offering services based on the "global system for mobile," or GSM technology, added a record 10.8 million subscribers in March, after bringing in 9.2 million subscribers in February and 9.3 million in January, according to figures released recently by an industry group.
"The trend supports our bullish stance on wireless subscriber growth in India. March subscriber net adds validates our view that Indian telecoms are highly resilient to the otherwise tough macro conditions," Macquarie Research wrote in a report.
Vodafone Essar led the March numbers, adding 2.85 million subscribers during the month. Bharti added 2.81 million, while state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam adding 2.5 million, and Idea Cellular grew by 1.42 million.
Reliance Communications, which has a much larger presence with phones using the competing standard CDMA, added 400,223 GSM subscribers during the month. India's CDMA subscriber figures for March have yet to be announced.
Telecom shares were trading higher in Wednesday afternoon trading in Mumbai, with Bharti Airtel stock rising 3%, and Reliance Communications gaining 4.9%, while Idea Cellular jumped 4.4%. The moves came as the overall market bounced off early lows, with the 30-stock Sensex rising 2.5% to 11,235.48.
India's Wednesday gains came in mixed regional market action, with Japan's Nikkei ending down 1.1%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng gaining 0.6%, China's Shanghai Composite advancing 0.4%, Australia's S&P/ASX 200 slipping 0.1% and Taiwan's Taiex sliding 0.3%.
Read more at MarketWatch
Shares of India's largest mobile operator by subscribers, Bharti Airtel, are down nearly 5% so far in 2009, while those of the second-largest company, Reliance Communications , are about flat. By comparison, the 30-stock Sensex is up more than 16% during the same period.
The underperformance comes despite strong growth in subscriber additions in the world's second-most populous country, where only about a third of the people use a mobile phone.
Indian mobile operators offering services based on the "global system for mobile," or GSM technology, added a record 10.8 million subscribers in March, after bringing in 9.2 million subscribers in February and 9.3 million in January, according to figures released recently by an industry group.
"The trend supports our bullish stance on wireless subscriber growth in India. March subscriber net adds validates our view that Indian telecoms are highly resilient to the otherwise tough macro conditions," Macquarie Research wrote in a report.
Vodafone Essar led the March numbers, adding 2.85 million subscribers during the month. Bharti added 2.81 million, while state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam adding 2.5 million, and Idea Cellular grew by 1.42 million.
Reliance Communications, which has a much larger presence with phones using the competing standard CDMA, added 400,223 GSM subscribers during the month. India's CDMA subscriber figures for March have yet to be announced.
Telecom shares were trading higher in Wednesday afternoon trading in Mumbai, with Bharti Airtel stock rising 3%, and Reliance Communications gaining 4.9%, while Idea Cellular jumped 4.4%. The moves came as the overall market bounced off early lows, with the 30-stock Sensex rising 2.5% to 11,235.48.
India's Wednesday gains came in mixed regional market action, with Japan's Nikkei ending down 1.1%, Hong Kong's Hang Seng gaining 0.6%, China's Shanghai Composite advancing 0.4%, Australia's S&P/ASX 200 slipping 0.1% and Taiwan's Taiex sliding 0.3%.
Read more at MarketWatch
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