Indian stock markets continued to shed initial gains over the last two hours but are still trading in the green. Barring capital goods and banking stocks, all sectoral indices are trading strong.
The BSE-Sensex is trading up by 102 points and NSE-Nifty is trading up by 20 points. BSE Mid cap and BSE Small cap indices too are trading up by 0.7% and 0.6% respectively. The rupee is trading at 48.95 to the US dollar.
Engineering stocks have been trading mixed with Opto Circuits and Bharat Electric leading the gainers and Shanthi Gears and Areva T&D trading the weakest. As per a leading financial daily, Siemens is aiming for a double -digit growth in revenues by capitalizing on the exponential growth of urban centers. Currently, the urban segment (infrastructure and cities sectors) contributes to 25% of the total business volumes worth Rs 120 bn and offers integrated mobility solutions, building and security technologies, power distribution, smart grid applications, and low and medium-voltage products. The sector comprises rail systems, mobility and logistics, low and medium voltage, smart grid, building technologies, etc. Taking the step in this direction, the company has recently commenced operations at two Greenfield factories in Goa with an investment of Rs 2 bn.
Stocks in the Indian Pharma sector are trading mixed with Fresenius Kabi Onco and Dishman Pharma leading the gainers and Orchid Chemicals and Strides Arcolab trading the weakest. As per a leading financial daily, the U.S market has seen price erosion of upto 70% in sales of Lipitor over past few months. As a result, Indian pharmaceutical majors such as Dr Reddy's Laboratories (DRL) and Lupin that are set to sell Lipitor in the US market by middle of 2012 are likely to be hit. The drug lost its patent protection in November last year and since then it is being sold by three players in US. Of these, Ranbaxy which is the only Indian company selling the drug currently in US (with 180 day marketing exclusivity ending in May 2012) has indicated price erosion of 60 to 70 % in generic Lipitor, much higher than the typical price erosion of 40 to 50 % in other products within such period. Lipitor's sales that had achieved a level of US$13 billion in 2006 came down to US$ 5.5 billion when it went off-patent on November 30, 2011. Both DRL and Lupin were trading in the red.
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