Positive close for Indian indices

Thu, 22 May Closing

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Indian equity markets remained in the positive territory throughout the trading session today. The benchmark indices traded well above the dotted line for most of today's session on the back of sustained buying across index heavyweights. However, selling activity intensified in the final hour of trade and indices pared some of its gains; albeit closed the day in green. While the BSE-Sensex today closed higher by 77 points, the NSE-Nifty closed higher by 24 points. The Smallcaps and midcap were in favour today. The BSE Mid Cap and BSE Small Cap indices closed higher by 2.31% and 2.11% respectively. Barring stocks from IT sector, all the other sectoral indices closed in green.

As regards global markets, Asian indices closed mixed today while European indices have opened weak. The rupee was trading at Rs 58.49 to the dollar at the time of writing.

Majority of Automobile stocks have closed the day on a mixed note. TVS and Maruti were among the leading gainers, while Mahindra and Mahindra and Tata motors were the leading losers. As per the financial daily, the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers ( SIAM) has given data pertaining to top 10 selling Indian car brands for the month of April. As per this data, Maruti Suzuki's five cars are in this top 10 list. The cars which form part of this top 10 list. The company's compact sedan Dzire was the second best selling car. M&M continued to top the list with its top selling brand Bolero.

Since some time, the automobile industry has been witnessing growth pressures. The volume off take has been bit disappointing for many of the automobile companies. Now the government is also looking forward for crash test norms which will bring some architectural changes in the models. Ofcourse this will push up the prices of the cars. In already challenging scenario, these norms will put more pressure. So which companies will be able to stay on the top 10 list that will also depend on these aspects.

The Indian pharma stocks have closed the day on the mixed note, on the other hand MNC pharma stocks have closed in green today. Among the Indian pharma stocks, Elder pharma and Ipca were among the leading gainers while among the MNC pharma stocks Merck and Pfizer were the leading gainers. Maximum selling pressures was witnessed in Dishman pharma and Biocon Ltd. As per the financial daily, the Indian drug pricing regulator is looking to lower the prices of various drugs in cancer and HIV therapies. Other therapies like diabetes, cardiovascular. tuberculosis and malaria drug prices might also be lowered. Reportedly, the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) is considering benchmarking prices of the most expensive brands for the above categories to the average price of their respective categories. Last year, the, the government brought into force a new market price linked method and brought down the prices of prices of 652 essential drug formulations. Both MNC and Indian pharma companies were impacted because of this pricing policy, as the companies had to bring down the price of the drugs covered in the national list of essential medicines (NLEM) at the price stated by government. MNC pharma companies were got more impacted due to the pricing policy, as these companies have various top selling brands and more expensive than the other companies.

While it will still take time for new drugs to come under the pricing control, but do you believe the MNC pharma companies are facing more pressures than the Indian pharma companies? Share your views on Club Equitymaster.