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Oil & Gas stocks lead the rally
Fri, 2 Sep 11:30 am

Indian stock market indices continued to trade strong during the previous two hours of trade on the back of sustained buying activity across index heavyweights. Oil and gas and Metals stocks are pushing the markets up, while IT stocks are at the receiving end.

The BSE-Sensex is up by 155 points and NSE-Nifty is up by 42 points at the moment. BSE-Midcap and BSE-Small cap indices are up by 0.72% and 0.04% respectively. The rupee is trading at 45.90 to the US dollar.

Energy stocks are the biggest gainers in today's market. All the stocks in the sectoral index are trading high. Reliance Industries and Cairn India are leading the rally. According to a leading financial daily, state run Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) is planning to set up a land-based liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal at Maharashtra and Karnataka which will have a capacity of 5 to 6 MT. The company will invest Rs 45 bn for this project. The company is yet to decide whether to set up the terminal on its own or go in for a joint venture. If the latter route is taken, then the joint venture partner may have to invest Rs 25 bn for the project. At present, the company markets 1 m tonnes re-liquefied natural gas (RLNG) per annum from Dahej (Gujarat) and is expected to market 2 m tonnes from the upcoming Kochi LNG terminal.

Pharma stocks are also trading in the green. Biocon and Sun Pharma are the biggest gainers, while Opto Circuits and Apollo Hospitals are the biggest losers. Meanwhile the world's largest drug maker Pfizer has settled a patent infringement lawsuit with Indian generic drug maker Dr Reddy's over the cholesterol treatment 'Lipitor' (known chemically as atorvastatin). The lawsuit was filed by Pfizer in December 2009 to prevent generic copies of Lipitor from coming out before Pfizer's patent for the tablet expires in 2017. The terms of the settlement were not disclosed. The company has also reached a settlement with Teva Pharmaceuticals and Mylan Inc to sell generic forms of Lipitor. It msut be noted that at present Ranbaxy has been granted the 180-day exclusivity for the drug given that it was the first-to-file for this product. In recent times, many Indian generic companies have been settling patent suits with innovators as it obviates the need for more costs on the legal front and provides some sort of revenue visibility with respect to the drugs in the future.

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