Sensex ends marginally lower

Tue, 10 May Closing

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Buying activity could not sustain itself during the closing stages and as a consequence, indices in the Indian stock market plunged into the negative territory and closed the day marginally in the red. BSE-Sensex closed with a loss in the region of 20 points whereas NSE-Nifty lost around 10 points. BSE Midcap also closed marginally in the negative today whereas the BSE Small cap index was able to sustain its gains and closed slightly in the positive. Nearly three stocks declined for every one that ended the day in the green on the Sensex today.

While most other Asian indices closed the day in the green, European stocks too are in the positive currently. The rupee was trading at Rs 44.8 to the dollar at the time of writing.

Pharma major Glenmark Pharma closed marginally in the red today. This despite a good set of numbers announced by the company for the full year FY11. Its total income increased by 19% YoY while net profit growth came in at an impressive 65% YoY. While the performance on a consolidated basis was slightly less impressive, it nonetheless managed to grow net profits by 38.3% on the back of a 22% YoY increase in topline. Revenues from generics business grew by 20% YoY while that of specialty formulation business managed to log in growth of 17% YoY. The company also announced a dividend of Rs 0.4 per share.

Following directions from the petroleum ministry Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) has cut natural gas supplies to the non-priority sectors like refineries and steel plants. The decision had to be taken by the ministry following a consistent drop in natural gas production from RIL's Krishna Godavari (KG) basin. It may be noted that the gas allocation in India is dependent on the priority status of the user industries. As natural gas is a scarce resource and is used to generate power, if by any reason there is a fall in natural gas production then the non-priority sectors have to bear the brunt to ensure that the priority sectors receive uninterrupted supply of natural gas. Hence, RIL under ministry's directive had to take the decision to cut the supply. However, this means that RIL will not be able to honor its gas supply agreements with non-priority sector companies. Resultantly, quite a few industry players from the non-priority sector have filed a case against the ministry's decision. Reliance closed marginally lower on the bourses today.