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Sensex Opens Flat; Capital Goods & Realty Stocks Drag
Mon, 21 Jan 09:30 am

Asian stock markets are higher today as Chinese and Hong Kong shares show gains. The Shanghai Composite is up 0.8% while the Hang Seng is up 0.4%. The Nikkei 225 is trading up by 0.5%. US stocks rallied on Friday, helping Wall Street's major indices advance for the fourth consecutive week.

Back home, India share markets opened on a flat note. The BSE Sensex is trading up by 11 points while the NSE Nifty is trading down by 20 points. The BSE Mid Cap index opened up by 0.1% while BSE Small Cap index opened down by 0.1%.

Sectoral indices have opened the day on a mixed note with power stocks and metal stocks witnessing maximum buying interest. While, capital goods stocks and realty stocks have opened the day in red.

The rupee is currently trading at Rs 71.25 against the US$.

Bank stocks opened the day on a mixed note with J&K Bank & IDFC First Bank leading the gainers. HDFC Bank on Saturday reported a 20.3% growth in net profit to Rs 55.9 billion for the third quarter ended 31 December, mainly on higher net interest income.

The bank had posted a net profit of Rs 46.4 billion in the October-December quarter of the last financial year.

Total income rose to Rs 308.1 billion during the December quarter against Rs 244.5 billion in the year-ago period.

Net interest income (interest earned less interest expended) for the quarter ended 31 December 2018 grew by 21.9% to Rs 125.8 billion, from Rs 103.1 billion for the quarter ended 31 December 2017, driven by asset growth of 23.7% and a core net interest margin for the quarter of 4.3%.

During the quarter, gross non-performing assets (NPAs) rose to 1.4% of the total advances, compared with 1.3% at the end of the third quarter of 2017-18. Net NPAs of the bank declined to 0.4% of the assets in October-December 2018, against 0.4% a year ago.

However, the bank's provisions (other than tax) and contingencies increased significantly to Rs 2211.5 billion against Rs 13.5 billion reported in the corresponding period of the previous financial year. Provisions for the quarter ended December 2018 include a charge of Rs 3.2 billion towards contingent provisions.

Further, the lender's total capital adequacy ratio (CAR) as per Basel III guidelines was at 17.3% as on December 2018 (15.5% as on December 2017) against a regulatory requirement of 11.025%, which includes a capital conservation buffer of 1.875%, and an additional requirement of 0.15% due to the bank being identified as a Domestic Systemically Important Bank (D-SIB).

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HDFC Bank share price opened the day up by 0.2%.

Moving on to the news from pharma sector. As per an article in a leading financial daily, Wockhardt has received approval from the United States Food & Drug Administration (USFDA) for an Abbreviated New Drug Application (ANDA) for 100mg and 400mg tablets of Imatinib Mesylate.

These tablets are used to treat many kinds of cancers and tumors. The product is being manufactured at a contract manufacturing facility, based near Hyderabad, India.

Reportedly, Wockhardt's Imatinib Mesylate tablets are a generic version of Gleevec, marketed in USA and other countries by Novartis.

According to IMS MAT data, the product has sales of US$707 million in the US.

Note that, Wockhardt is building a portfolio of oncology products in the US and has several pending ANDA's for oncology products.

Wockhardt share price opened the day up by 1.4%.

To know more about the company, you can access to Wockhardt's Q2FY19 result analysis and Wockhardt's FY18 annual report analysis on our website.

And to know what's moving the Indian stock markets today, check out the most recent share market updates here.

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