Wall St flat as Greece loan delay rekindles fears

NEW YORK: US stocks were little changed on Monday as investors were hesitant to buy riskier assets after a decision was delayed on emergency loans to Greece and Moody's said it may downgrade Italy's credit rating. 

The market seesawed between modest gains and losses. Wall Street started lower, but erased losses as the S&P dipped toward 1,259, its 200-day moving average, encouraging buyers. A drop below that level would be the first since September 2010. 

"From a technical point of view, the 200-day moving average is where the market gains support," said Jason Ware, senior equity analyst at Albion Financial Group in Salt Lake City, Utah. 

The Dow Jones industrial average was up 20.02 points, or 0.17 per cent, at 12,024.38. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index was down 0.27 points, or 0.02 per cent, at 1,271.23. The Nasdaq Composite Index was down 0.85 points, or 0.03 per cent, at 2,615.63. 

Euro zone finance ministers delayed a decision on extending 12 billion euros ($17 billion) in emergency loans to Greece, saying Athens would first have to introduce austerity measures. 

The ministers expect the money, the next tranche in a 110 billion euro bailout by the European Union and the International Monetary Fund , to be paid by mid-July. Greece needs the loans by then to avoid a debt default.

"It blows the confidence out of the market, especially when the expectation was that there will be some kind of support or help to solve the situation. 

Adding to concerns, Moody's threatened to cut Italy's credit ratings in the next 90 days on worries that the Greece crisis may drive interest rates higher and derail Italy's fragile economic recovery. 

In company news, the US Food and Drug Administration approved a tamper-resistant pain drug from Pfizer Inc and Acura Pharmaceuticals Inc. Acura shares jumped 34 per cent to $5.18, while Pfizer shares fell 0.7 per cent to $20.12...

LIC Card, Axis Bank introduces value added Credit Card

LIC Cards and Axis Bank today entered into a partnership and introduced a value 

RELATED ARTICLES IndusInd Bank inks pact with ECS for credit card biz 30 corporate honchos get Rs 1 crore-plus salary Axis Bank launches MY MONEY CARD

added Credit Card service for the customers and employees of LIC, its subsidiaries and group companies.

The card comes with host of benefits, including access to airport lounges and fuel surcharge waiver, LIC and Axis Bank said in a joint statement.

"We are confident that our relationship with Axis Bank will accelerate the process of increasing customer comfort which has been our constant endeavour and further add value to our services," LIC acting Chairman D K Mehrotra said.

Through the program, the bank will address the payment solution needs of LIC customers thereby giving them yet another reason to stay with LIC of India, said Axis Bank Managing Director Shikha Sharma.

The LIC Credit Card program is designed to offer payment solution to customers of LIC, it said, adding, there will be four product variants, namely Visa Gold, MasterCard Titanium, Visa Platinum, and Visa Signature Credit Card.

In addition to regular credit card benefits like global acceptance, interest free credit period, cash withdrawal etc, it said...

Markets May See-Saw Amid European Deal Talks

Euro-zone finance ministers on Sunday took a step toward shoring up financially troubled Greece. But until the ink is dried on a final agreement, markets are likely to trade in choppy waters.

Finance ministers from European nations that use the euro met by phone into the wee hours of Monday morning, saying they would decide in early July the main outlines of a second bailout for Greece, including private-sector contributions. Finance ministers from the Group of Seven leading industrialized nations also held a conference call Sunday night, according to spokespeople from the U.S. and Japan. One person told The Wall Street Journal the call focused on the euro-zone debt crisis.

Market watchers say that without a solid agreement, riskier assets could fall prey, especially as protesters continue to take to the streets in Athens and a vote of confidence is due early this week in the Greek cabinet.

"It has a long way to go before they can actually say we have dealt with this issue," said Stuart Ive, head trader at HiFX in Auckland, New Zealand. "I think they will ultimately deal with it, but obviously the method they use has to be one that is agreeable firstly to the Greek public, secondly to the German and French public and thirdly to the ratings agencies."

"Financial markets will need to be braced for further volatility," said Geoffrey Yu, currency strategist at UBS in London.

The euro drifted lower in the aftermath of the finance ministers' statement, trading early Monday in Asia at $1.4269 from $1.4302 late Friday in New York.

Investors--and, it would seem, global financial leaders--worry a default on Greek debt could trigger a cascade of problems in Europe's bigger economies, including Spain. Such a domino effect could bring again bring the financial system to its knees, much like the massive crisis of 2008.

"Even though this is a euro zone issue, we know that last year the Treasury, [Federal Reserve] and U.S. government were very clear on the fact that the Greece crisis was affecting global financial markets," Mr. Yu said. "Behind the scenes, fears over a disorderly default, and the repercussions for the global banking system, were too great for the U.S. (and probably Japan) to ignore."

The U.S., which inches toward financial recovery, wouldn't want to be hobbled by a euro-zone debt contagion, Mr. Yu said. Nor would Japan, he said, whose own economy lurched back into recession after the earthquake and proceeding nuclear crisis there.

The fact that a new Greek loan was discussed among G-7 members "gives these talks more credibility with the IMF," said Christian Thwaites, president and chief executive at Sentinel Investments, referring to the International Monetary Fund. "Investors ultimately want to see this situation stop lurching from weekend to weekend," he said.

"If they come to a deal where liquidity is put in place and there's nothing cataclysmic requiring European banks to recapitalize, there probably will be an equity bounce tomorrow," he said. "But the murky details just don't seem final enough or big enough to close the book on this situation."

The apparent G-7 involvement "underscores the threat that a Greek debt default poses to the global financial system," said John Kyriakopoulos, a currency strategist at National Australia Bank in Sydney. "Indeed, the [European Central Bank] has already warned of this on a few occasions."

Still, the bank believes riskier assets can rally, given the commitment of euro-zone officials--especially of Germany and France, which struck a softer chord in a Friday meeting--to sorting the Greece crisis..

ONGC to merge Russian assets with Bashneft, RussNeft-report

MUMBAI, June 20 (Reuters) - The cabinet has approved a merger of ONGC's Russian assets with Bashneft and RussNeft in a deal that will give the state-run explorer a 25 percent stake in the combined entity and access to one of the biggest discovered oilfields in Russia, the Economic Times reported.

Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) has long been eyeing Bashneft as well as an involvement in the Arctic fields Trebs and Titov that the Sistema subsidiary acquired last year from the Russian state.

The merger will give ONGC a quarter share in the Russian firm's annual oil production of 25 million tonnes besides partnerships in their refineries totaling 20 million tonnes capacity, the newspaper said on Monday without revealing how it got the information.

Indian Oil Corp may also join ONGC in the venture, the paper said, citing officials in the oil ministry.

ONGC and Indian Oil could not immediately be reached for comment.

ONGC already has a stake in Russia's Sakhalin-1 oil and gas project in the Pacific, and in 2008 it acquired the Imperial Energy oil company in western Siberia.

Last December, the Russian oil-to-telecoms holding firm Sistema and ONGC signed a non-binding agreement to consider assets swaps and joint tapping of Russia's energy deposits..