In a major development that will allow Indian investors access to the American market, the National Stock Exchange (NSE) has decided to begin trading in futures contracts of S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA), two of the world's most influential market indices.

This will be the first time the two indices will be traded in markets outside the US.

At the same time, Nifty, NSE's benchmark index comprising India's [ Images ] 50 top blue-chip stocks, will be traded on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME). The S&P 500 and Dow indices are licensed to the CME.

The listing and trading arrangement for these indices, which are subject to regulatory approvals in India and the US, was announced by the National Stock Exchange and CME in a joint statement this evening.

The S&P 500, which has Exxon Mobil, Microsoft [ Images ] and Apple as the most weighted stock in the index, is regarded as the single gauge of large-cap US equities since 1957, capturing 75 per cent of US equities by market capitalisation. The Dow is among the most closely-watched benchmark indices tracking the performance of the US industrial sector.

Besides the cross-listing and licensing agreements, the two bourses have also signed an agreement on other areas of potential co-operation such as the development and distribution of financial products and services.

NSE's affiliate, India Index Services and Products Ltd (IISL), has granted an exclusive licence for Americas and Europe to the CME Group for trading in the Nifty 50.

Samir Arora, fund manager at Singapore based Helios Capital Management said: "It is a big positive move for Indian markets and investors. The domestic fund houses, even retail investors, will be able to hedge their risk by taking counter-positions in US indices, since news flow from the US had a major influence on capital markets around the world."

The Nifty index is currently traded only in Singapore outside India and trading has recorded phenomenal growth of over 700 per cent on the Singapore Stock Exchange in the past couple of years. Hedge funds are known to take huge positions on the SGX.

Ravi Narain, managing director and chief executive officer of NSE, said this association with the CME Group would make the Nifty 50, and, over time, potentially other products across various India-related asset classes, available to a much larger community of traders and investors. At the same time, investors in India would have access to new exchange traded products that reflect some of the world's most widely traded equity indexes," he said.

Craig Donohue, Chief Executive Officer, CME Group, said as the world's 12th largest and one of the most rapidly growing economies, India was an important part of CME's efforts to develop strategic partners in key growth markets.

NSE also announced an agreement to explore the listing and trading of more India-linked products on the Singapore Exchange Ltd, which already has a licence to trade in the Nifty 50.

Separately, NSE has also tried to strengthen its product offering on the SGX. Under an agreement signed between NSE and SGX today, both exchanges will explore future collaboration in the expansion, development and promotion of India-linked products and services to be listed on SGX. 

Subject to regulatory approval, these products may include equity products and other asset classes. The two exchanges also will look into a bilateral securities trading link to enable investors in one country to seamlessly trade on the other country's exchange.

NSE and SGX have has a successful partnership since 2000 with the launch of the SGX S&P CNX Nifty Futures, which had trading volume of 7.1 million contracts last year.

Delhi is the best Indian city to live in, while steel city Jamshedpur ranks lowest in the Liveability Index 2010 prepared jointly by CII and Institute for Competitiveness.

The country's financial capital Mumbai [ Images ] comes second in the list of 37 cities mapped in the list, prepared on parameters like living standard, socio-cultural environment, education, medical standards and recreational possibilities among others.

Delhi [ Images ] comes on top in education, safety and economic environment; second in housing options, socio-cultural political environment; but medical standards remains the Achilles heel where the national capital finds 17th place.

"In overall quality of life, Delhi outscores on Mumbai, Chennai, Bengaluru [ Images ], Kolkata [ Images ], Hyderabad, Ahmedabad [ Images ], Pune and Gurgaon, which take up respective ranks second to ninth," the report said, adding that Faridabad, Ludhiana, Lucknow [ Images ], Patna, Visakhapatnam [ Images ] and Jamshedpur are the last six ranked cities on overall quality of life.

"Chandigarh is a surprising 14th on this, proving that a city needs much more than apparent beauty to be truly liveable," it said using data from organisations like Centre for Monitoring of Indian Economy. Mumbai aced the demographic advantage and is blessed with the healthiest socio-cultural politico environment as well as natural-built environment, where Delhi comes close second. Delhi, however, turns out to be the safest city in the country "contrary to negative press against it".

Students and India [ Images ] Inc alike are closely following the placements season at various Indian Institutes of Management this year, which is supposed to provide an indicator of improvement in the economy.

Every IIM has 250-300 students for final placements this year. At IIM Calcutta, for instance, the final placement for 280 students started on March 6. Close to 120 companies confirmed their participations this year for final placements.

"Like all years, finance would be the dominant sector during placements," says Praful Agnihotri, chairman-placements of IIM-C.

The mood on the campus is one of optimism on the back of a good response to lateral placements, which is for students with prior work experience. The institute witnessed 50-80 per cent hike in salaries this year for its lateral placements over the previous year.

The institute, however, has not disclosed what the current salaries are, but more than 40 companies turned up for lateral placements this year at IIM-C, informed a source close to the development. While this is a significant improvement compared to last year, the institute is looking forward to a better placement season ahead.

The recruiters who made lateral offers included Cognizant Business Consulting, Deloitte, Hinduja Group, Aditya Birla Group, Accenture Business Consulting, Mahindra & Mahindra, Virtusa, Essar and Bristlecone.

From consulting to general management, there has been a greater variety of roles on offer this year as compared with last year. IIM-C also witnessed an increase in the packages offered to the students for lateral placement this year, with a few offers above Rs 20 lakh per annum being made.

Students and institute officials are expecting a better response for final placements. For PGP placements, the highest pre-placement-offer so far has been around Rs 60 lakh (Rs 6 million). And the tone remains positive.

Nomura Securities, for instance, has picked up 10 students from IIMs this year - two students from IIM-A, four from IIM-B and another four from IIM-C. Out of the 10, eight students are for Nomura Global for investment banking profile, informed sources.

IIM-B

Meanwhile, IIM Bangalore, which started its final placements process on March 4, has seen traditional recruiters like investment banks and consultancies back on the campus. Recruiters have reportedly offered an increase of 10-20 per cent in average salaries, depending on the student's work experience and profile.

Boston Consulting Group set the tone for the placement season at IIM-B this year and offered jobs to close to 10 graduates, even as consulting giants like McKinsey, Bain & Co and AT Kearney and financial heavyweights like Nomura, Bank of America Merrill Lynch India offered salaries 15-20 per cent higher than the previous year.

Sources at IIM-B informed Business Standard that investment banks offered salaries in the range of Rs 60-70 lakh (Rs 6-7 million) per annum. The average domestic salaries offered were in the Rs 13-24 lakh (Rs 1.3-2.4 million)-per-annum range, mainly by consulting firms.

"We are expecting more overseas offers compared with last year," said a student who is up for placements this year. He said some investment banks are also expected to offer international salary packages in the range of Rs 80 lakh-1 crore (Rs 8-10 million).

IIM-A

IIM-Ahmedabad (IIM-A), which is conducting a cohort-based placement process this year, has seen an increase in the number of offers from companies this year. A student from the institute has reportedly been offered a record Rs 1.44 crore (Rs 14 million) plus package from Deutsche Bank, while a student from IIM Lucknow [ Images ] has bagged the highest offer of Rs 75 lakh (Rs 7.5 million) from Olam International.

ICICI Bank [ Get Quote ] emerged as the biggest recruiter during the third cluster of cohort-based final placements at IIM-A by offering over 10 jobs to the students, while regular recruiters such as ICRA, KPMG, Essar Group and Philips offered jobs to the IIM-A students in finance, consulting, sales and marketing fields.

For lateral placements, around 60 per of the batch at most IIMs have prior work experience.

IIM-K

At IIM Kozhikode, over 25 companies have participated in the lateral placement this year and have hired around 80 students. Some of the key recruiters are Goldman Sachs, Deloitte and Cognizant.

"The information technology sector seems more bullish this year. The number of banks that have confirmed participation this year is also greater than the number last year," says Keyoor Purani, chairperson (placements) of IIM-K.

About 15 companies are participating in the lateral placements at IIM Indore. Some of the key recruiters have been Cognizant Business Consulting, Infosys [ Get Quote ], Wipro [ Get Quote ], TCS [ Get Quote ], Syntel, Genpact and Jindal Steel & Power.

IIM-L

At IIM Lucknow, the tilt towards the IT sector is obvious. "Participation has improved sharply among IT companies and those from the financial services sector. We have also consciously targeted the IT space, given that two-thirds of the batch has IT experience," said RL Raina, placements coordinator at the institute. Here, the batch size is close to 320, of which nearly 200 students have prior work experience.