Markets trade at life highs

Mon, 12 May 11:30 am

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   09:30 am   

   01:30 pm   

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After opening firm, the Indian Indices are trading at life highs in the morning. All indices except the pharma and IT indices are trading positive. The buying interest is highest in banking and engineering and auto stocks.

The BSE Sensex is trading up 420 points and the NSE-Nifty is trading up 118 points. The BSE Mid Cap index is trading up 1.1% and the BSE Small Cap index is trading up 0.8% today. The rupee is trading at 59.69 to the US dollar.

Mostsoftware stocks are trading lower today. Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and Wipro are leading the losers. As per a leading financial daily, Indian IT firms are gaining a foothold in Europe. The continent is proving to be a lucrative market as many European companies are more open to outsourcing than before. European countries are slowly recovering from the economic crises of the last few years. Senior managements of several large European companies are under pressure to cut costs and have become more open to the idea of outsourcing. Indian IT firms are also looking for acquisitions in the continent to deepen their skills as well as hiring more local talent to integrate better with European business culture.

Indian Pharmaceutical stocks are trading mixed today. Torrent Pharma and Elder Pharma are leading the gainers. Panacea Biotech and Indoco Remedies are leading the losers. According to a leading business daily, Daiichi Sankyo, the Japanese drug maker which has controlling share in Ranbaxy Laboratories has moved the Andhra Pradesh High Court in order to challenge the court's interim order to maintain status quo on the sale of Ranbaxy to Sun Pharmaceuticals. The high court has directed NSE and BSE to not to approve the merger following a petition filed by retail investors where they have alleged insider trading in the merger deal. As per the allegations, Silver Street, a limited-liability partnership firm owned by two subsidiaries of Sun Pharmaceuticals was involved in the insider trading of Ranbaxy. Before the announcement of the deal on April 6, 2014; Shares of Ranbaxy witnessed an unusual increase in price and turnover during the six trading days.

As per the petition filed by Daiichi, the alleged insider trading and scheme of merger are two independent issues. Hence, the court cannot stall the merger for alleged insider trading. Daiichi also informed the court that the "submission of the scheme of arrangement to the stock exchanges is not for the purpose of seeking approval of the said scheme". The stock exchanges have powers only to issue observation letter to the scheme, which will be informed to the shareholders and high courts for their consideration. Daiichi also alleged that the retail investors "misled" the court by stating that the approval of stock exchanges was required for the scheme of arrangement. Sun Pharmaceuticals and Ranbaxy are trading 1% and 1.1% down today respectively.