Indian share markets continued to trade strongly in the post noon trading session. Majority of the sectoral indices are trading positive with realty, auto and banking stocks leading in gains. Pharma, power and technology stocks are among the biggest losers.
BSE-Sensex is up 84 points and NSE-Nifty is trading up by 20 points. While BSE Mid Cap is down by 0.1%, BSE Small Cap index is up by a similar magnitude. The rupee is trading at 52.9 to the US dollar.
Most of the investment & finance stocks are trading in green with IFCI and Power Finance Corp being the biggest gainers. However, Infrastructure Development Finance Company (IDFC) and Indiabulls Financial Services are facing selling pressure. As per a leading financial daily, housing finance company HDFC is planning to raise external commercial borrowings to the tune of USD 500 m before March-end 2013. The company is awaiting approval from Reserve Bank of India (RBI). In FY13, RBI allowed builders to raise ECB up to USD 1 bn for low-cost affordable housing projects. Even Housing finance companies (HFCs) and National Housing Bank (NHB) can tap the ECB route for low-cost housing units. HDFC saw loan disbursements of around Rs 120 bn in the affordable homes segment in 2012. HDFC stock is currently up 2.2%.
Most of the foreign pharma stocks are trading in green with Sanofi India and Novartis being the major gainers. According to a leading financial daily, GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals (GSK Pharma) will be entering a deal with a multinational company to enter a new product line. As per the company, launching niche products from portfolios of other drug majors through in-licensing deals will continue to remain the company's strategy to grow operations locally. GSK Pharma currently has alliances with Daiichi-Sankyo for hypertension drug Olmesartan Medoxomil and with Astellas for anti-fungal drug Micafungin. The stock is currently trading up 0.6%.
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