Sensex Trades Over 260 Points Down; TCS & Infosys Top Losers

Wed, 21 Nov 12:30 pm | Rini Mehta, TM Team

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Stock markets in India are presently trading lower, tracking weakness in their global peers. Among the sectoral indices, IT stocks and metal stocks are witnessing maximum selling pressure. While, healthcare stocks and PSU stocks are trading in green.

The BSE Sensex is trading lower by 261 points (down 0.2%), and the NSE Nifty is trading lower by 63 points (down 0.3%). Meanwhile, the BSE Mid Cap index is trading up by 0.3% while the BSE Small Cap index is trading down by 0.1%. The rupee is trading at 71.30 to the US$.

Speaking of stocks, if you wondering whether the boring stocks will do well against smallcaps as well as asset classes like gold and fixed income over the long term, take a look at this chart.

Boring Bluechips are Necessary for Risk Hedged Returns

The BSE 500 which represents a mix of bluechip and midcap stocks, underperformed the BSE smallcap index only over the 5-year period. And even in a year of sharp market correction (like 2018), the correction in the index is much lesser than that of the smallcap index.

In the news from the economy. As per the latest report by Employment Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO), India reported over 2-fold jump at 9.7 lakh new job creations in the month of September 2018 as compared to 4.1 lakh jobs in the corresponding month last year.

The data also showed that around 79.5 lakh new subscribers were added to social security schemes of the EPFO from September 2017 to September 2018. This indicates that these many jobs were created in the last 13 months.

As per the report, the maximum jobs were created in the age bracket of 18-21 and in this bracket the top 10 sectors which have created more fresh jobs include Expert Services, Trading in Commercial Establishments, Electric Engineering Products, Construction Industry, Engineering, Marketing Servicing, Textiles, Garments making, Cleaning and Sweeping Services and Hospitals.

In the similar age bracket, Maharashtra was the first among the States to create maximum payroll, followed by Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Gujarat, and Haryana.

Note that, a critical factor in the upcoming elections could be the jobless population of India. Governments, past and present, have continued to face challenges on the employment front.

The upheaval in the unorganised sector has a lot to do with the increase in unemployment. Here's an excerpt of what Tanushree Banerjee, Co-head of Research at Equitymaster wrote about unemployment in The 5 Minute WrapUp:

• "Post GST and Notebandi, there has been a gradual shift from the unorganised to the organised sector. However, a majority of India's workforce is employed in the unorganised sector and they have been badly hit.
  
  The movement of this workforce in the organised sector has been slow. A big reason has been the lack of skilled employees.
  
  India faces a severe shortage of skilled workers who are in high demand in the organised sector. The challenge for the government will be to improve quality and quantity of the skilled workforce in the country.
  
  With the general elections due in May next year, this is easier said than done."

Moving on to the news from the pharma sector. Lupin share price is in focus today after it was reported that the company launched Tetrabenazine Tablets, 12.5 mg and 25 mg. It received an approval from the United States Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) earlier.

Lupin's Tetrabenazine Tablets are the generic equivalent of Valeant Pharmaceuticals North America, LLC's Xenazine tablets. It is indicated for the treatment of chorea associated with Huntington's disease.

Reportedly, Xenazine tablets had annual sales of US$153 million in the US (IQVIA MAT September 2018).

To know more about the company, you can access to Lupin's Q1FY19 result analysis and Lupin's 2017-18 Annual Report Analysis on our website.

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

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