Bluechips find favour in staid session

Fri, 3 Aug Closing

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In what was a rather lackluster session for the Indian equity markets, select Sensex heavyweights from the banking, power, pharma and paint sectors found investor favour. The benchmark indices, however began the day's proceedings on a weak note and closed near the day's highs, albeit below breakeven. While the Sensex today closed lower by around 26 points, the NSE-Nifty today closed lower by 12 points. The BSE Mid Cap and the BSE Small Cap indices ended flat. Gains were largely seen in healthcare, IT and energy stocks, while metals stocks were the biggest losers.

As regards global markets, Asian indices closed mixed today while European indices have also opened on a mixed note. The rupee was trading at Rs 55.75 to the dollar at the time of writing.

Coal India (CIL) has agree to sign the Fuel Supply Agreements (FSAs) with the power companies for shipping to them a minimum of 80% coal out of the total contracted quantum. The coal major would meet 65% of the supplies from domestic sources and would import the remaining 15%. It is yet to take a final call on whether the company would pool the price of domestic as well as imported fuel. The coal major had, in June 2012, lowered its production target for the financial year 2012-13 to 440 million tonne from the estimate of 452 million tonne in its annual plan, citing various reasons like heavy rainfall, strike and delays in the grant of environmental clearances to coal projects for the downward revision in the production target.

Meanwhile, pharma major Ranbaxy Laboratories has entered into an in-licensing agreement with Gilead Sciences to promote access to high quality, low cost generic versions of Gilead's HIV medicine emtricitabine in developing countries. Gilead Sciences is an American biotechnology company that discovers, develops and commercializes therapeutics. Under the new agreement, Gilead will provide a technology transfer for the manufacture of emtricitabine, together with funding to assist with investment in process improvements to reduce manufacturing costs. Ranbaxy's revenues from the US business recorded sales growth of around 172% YoY. This was largely led by healthy growth in base business sales and continued sale of 2 exclusivity products notably Atorvastatin (Lipitor) and Amlodipine+Atorvastatin (Caduet). The company has already garnered a market share of around 42% in Atorvastatin.