Investors with a horizon of 6-12 months can consider following scripts for their investment. These companies have potential to give higher returns than index over a long term. TATA Steel has achieved its target of 708.

Corporate Highlights

The country's largest lender State Bank of India on Friday hiked lending and deposit rates on select maturities by 0.25 percentage points in response to policy rate hike announced by Reserve Bank last month. SBI revised the base rate or the minimum lending rate 0.25 percentage points to 8.25%.

Aviation sector to absorb $ 120 bn investment: Highlighting the "unprecedented" growth being witnessed by the country in air transport, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today said the sector was projected to absorb investment of over $ 120 billion in the coming years. The Centre was moving on a mission-mode for creating modern and efficient infrastructure to cope with the huge growth projected for the civil aviation sector.

Tyre manufacturer Apollo Tyres said it plans to enter the Eastern Europe market for setting up a new green field facility, as part of strengthening its brand in the overseas market.

Economic Highlights

Industrial growth slumped further to a 20-month low of 1.6 per cent in December 2010, weighed down by a contraction in capital goods, consumer non-durables and manufacturing. The deceleration comes despite core sector industries — they have a 26 per cent weight in the basket of industrial production — posting a 6.6 per cent growth, vis-a-vis 6.2 per cent a year earlier.

India's exports grew by a healthy 32.5% year-on-year to $20.6 billion in January, 2011 on account of increasing demand in the western markets. During April-January this fiscal, the country's shipments went up by 29.4% to $184.6 billion. "It is a huge jump. Export performance is pretty damn good. By February, we should cross $200 billion.