Metal, banks bouy the markets

Tue, 5 Jan 11:30 am

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The markets continued their northward journey on account of sustained buying activity witnessed during the previous two hours of trade. Though stocks across all sectors are witnessing a field day those from the metal and banking sectors are leading the pack of gainers.

The BSE-Sensex and NSE-Nifty indices are trading higher, up by 145 points and 45 points respectively. The BSE-Midcap and BSE-Smallcap indices are also trading higher, up by 1.3% and 1.1% respectively. The rupee is trading at 46.17 to the dollar.

According to a leading business daily, Tata group's jewellery and watch arm, Titan is looking to triple its revenue in the next 5 years. It plans to raise its topline from Rs 46 bn in this fiscal to Rs 140 bn by 2014-15. In the jewellery category which leads its topline, it plans to strengthen its position in the high-end designer jewellery segment. Tanishq is expected to contribute around Rs 100 bn by next 5 years. Here, it is diverting its focus from the recession-hit US market. It is planning to adopt a design-robust, diamond led and large store intensive strategy. The company sees a lot of opportunity in the Indian jewellery market which is slated to grow from Rs 800 bn to around 1,250bn by 2015. Rather than focusing on low-end everyday wear jewellery, the company will focus on wedding jewellery segment.

In the watch segment, it is diverting its focus towards smaller international markets like Vietnam, Oman and Qatar. We believe that the company's sales growth will be impacted in the current fiscal on account of rise in gold prices which dented the volumes.Nevertheless, its investment in brands should start paying off in the near future.

As per a leading business daily, Cipla, India's second largest pharma company (by market value) is in talks with leading global generic drug manufacturers like GSK and Israel's Teva for supplying generic drugs. Cipla is planning to strike a deal for one or two specific products and is not planning to sell any stake to any partner company. Cipla has been in a number of such negotiations with drug majors like GSK, Pfizer and Boehringer Ingelheim. It may be noted that global drug makers like GSK and Pfizer which are plagued by falling drug prices and increasing generic competition, are eyeing low-cost destinations like India as a source for supplies. This is good news for drug makers like Cipla as supply tie-ups will help their topline growth. Cipla is one of the world's largest producers of low-cost drugs for fighting HIV AIDS. Presently, it has a market value of US$ 5.5 bnand expects to rake in US$ 1.1 bn in sales for FY10.