Profit Top 10: RIL Q4 profit at 2-year low; Nifty Futures sees freak trade

• Major economic reforms not before 2014 polls: Kaushik Basu
• EARNINGS CENTRAL: RIL, Cairn India, Posco, McDonalds, Nestle
• Sensex fails to recover from freak trade, falls 130 points
• Maruti Suzuki revenue seen rising first time in three quarters
• Tata Motors: Why shares with limited rights outperforming ordinary shares
• India struggles to deliver enough electricity for growth
• Wall Street sheds 1,400 workers in March
• Goldman Sachs facing new insider trading probe
• Royal Enfield roars back on quieter, sleeker bikes
• Rumors swirl of smaller iPad, which Jobs detested

Major economic reforms not before 2014 polls: Chief Economic Advisor

Acknowledging that economic reforms in India have slowed down and may remain that way till the next general elections in 2014, the finance ministry's Chief Economic Advisor Kaushik Basu said they will gather pace thereafter and from 2015 India will be among the world's fastest growing economies.

After the elections, the government of the day would take reforms on fast track and there would be a flurry of reforms, Basu said, addressing a meeting at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, an eminent Washington-based think tank. (Read More)

This raised a flurry of reactions from politicos and economists. Montek Singh Ahluwalia, deputy chairman of the Planning Commission, said he does not agree with the Kaushik Basu's assessment of a policy deadlock, while Saugata Bhattacharya, Sr. VP-Business & Economic Research at Axis Bank says there is an element of truth in stance on reforms.

Also Read: United States of India: Transition of power stalling economic reforms

EARNINGS CENTRAL: RIL, Cairn India, Posco

Energy companies Reliance Industries and Cairn India announced the results for January-March quarter. While RIL’s net profit for March 2012 quarter fell 21 per cent to Rs 4,236 crore, the lowest quarterly profit in more than two years, that of Cairn India fell 11 per cent to Rs 2186.23 crore on yearly basis.

General Electric, McDonalds, Nestle, EBay, Posco were few of the other companies that announced their earnings for the quarter.

Sensex fails to recover from freak trade, falls 130 points

The BSE Sensex snapped a four day rally to end lower Friday. It ended 129.87 points or 0.74 per cent lower at 17,373.84 while the broader Nifty index declined 41.55 points to 5,290.85. Auto stocks were the biggest gainers this week. Reliance Industries (-1.5%), India's top company by market cap, closed lower ahead of its Q4 earnings. (Read More)

Trading would have been uneventful but for a freak trade that led to a sharp fall on the Sensex and Nifty. The Sensex dropped nearly 270 points to an intraday low of 17,231 while the broader Nifty index fell over 85 points to 5,245 near 2.30 pm.

Maruti Suzuki revenue seen rising first time in three quarters

Top Indian automaker Maruti Suzuki is expected to post its first rise in revenue in three quarters after a torrid financial year for the carmaker as Tata Motors continues to see revenue and profit surge on the back of strong sales at its Jaguar Land Rover unit.

Also read: Maruti Suzuki up on bets that Ertiga model will really see 'LUV'

South Korean rivals Hyundai Motor and Kia Motors are also expected to post solid earnings for the January-to-March quarter, defying concerns about competition from resurgent Japanese automakers thanks to better-than-anticipated sales overseas. (Read More)

Tata Motors: Why shares with limited rights outperforming ordinary shares

Tata Motors, the owner of luxury brands like Jaguar-Land Rover, has seen the differential voting rights (DVR) shares outperform ordinary shares over the past one week. Tata DVR rose 18 per cent at Rs 187 while Tata Motors ordinary shares gained 11 per cent at Rs 318. The gap between these shares is 42 per cent.

Here are some pointers that could help you comprehend the trend.

India struggles to deliver enough electricity for growth

India has long struggled to provide enough electricity to light its homes and power its industry around the clock. In recent years, the government and private sector sought to change that by building scores of new power plants. But that campaign is now running into difficulties because the country cannot get enough fuel — principally coal — to run the plants. (Read why)

Wall Street sheds 1,400 workers in March

Wall Street brokerages cut 1,400 employees in March, though this vital sector of New York City's economy still has about 2,000 more workers than a year-ago, according to a report on Thursday by the state Department of Labor.

"It's not the large falloff people were predicting a year ago," said James Brown, a labor market analyst with the department. Wall Street jobs are the backbone of the city's economy. (Read More)

Goldman Sachs facing new insider trading probe

Federal prosecutors in California are investigating a Goldman Sachs employee for insider trading, according to prosecutors and defense lawyers who attended a hearing in U.S. federal court in New York on Thursday.

The employee is suspected of giving inside information on two public companies to former Galleon Group co-founder Raj Rajaratnam, who was convicted last year in one of the largest insider trading cases in Wall Street history. (Read More)

Royal Enfield roars back on quieter, sleeker bikes

The "thump" is gone, but sales are booming. Royal Enfield, a 119-year-old Anglo-Indian motorcycle maker with a cult following, has brought its distinctive bikes into the modern era with new and quieter engines and can't make them fast enough to meet demand. 

See photo gallery: The thump machine

The once-sleepy company sold 74,600 motorcycles in 2011, a 40 per cent increase, all made at its 57-year-old factory in Chennai, and is spending $30 million this fiscal year in a push to double capacity and upgrade manufacturing technology. (Read More)

Rumors swirl of smaller iPad, which Jobs detested

Apple generates more gossip than the Kardashians.

There's a constantly spinning mill of rumors about Apple products, most of which turn out to be untrue. What's unusual this week is that talk has revived of a smaller iPad model, an idea company founder Steve Jobs derided publicly a year before he died. Here is why it could be a good idea and what it might cost.