Indian markets trade flat

Wed, 28 May 11:30 am

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   09:30 am   

   01:30 pm   

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After opening firm; the Indian indices have shed some gains and are trading flat in the last two hours of the trading session. Realty and software stocks are leading the gainers Auto, FMCG and metal stocks are witnessing selling pressure.

The BSE-Sensex is trading down 14 points and the NSE-Nifty is trading down 4 points. The BSE Mid Cap index is trading up 0.5%, while the BSE Small Cap index is trading up 1.3% today. The rupee is trading at 59.03 to the US dollar.

Consumer Products stocks are trading mixed today. Paper Products and Pidilite Industries are leading the gainers; while Godrej Consumer and Marico Ltd are leading the losers. As per a feature in a leading business daily; competition seems to be heating up in the oral care market of India. Colgate is the market leader with 54.3% market share. Hindustan Unilever Ltd and Dabur India trail with 24% and 11% market share respectively. Colgate is likely to unveil a technologically advanced toothpaste - Colgate Maximum Cavity Protection, a mid-premium brand from the firm's global portfolio. On the other hand; HUL and Dabur are also expediting efforts to increase their market share. HUL is working on a new whitening toothpaste under its Close-Up brand. HUL's share in the toothpaste segment has been continuously falling and the new launch could help the company gain the lost market share. Dabur's Red toothpaste is the fastest growing brand in the market with 17% annual growth rate. Procter & Gamble (P&G) is also planning to extend its value-added Crest toothpaste nationally. Colgate is trading 1.7% up today. HUL is trading 0.1% down today.

Most software stocks are trading higher today. HCL Technologies and Tech Mahindra are leading the gainers. As per a leading financial daily, India's third largest software firm Wipro has bagged a large software contract in the healthcare space. The company has won a US$ 400 m deal from Japan's pharma major Takeda and both firms have described the deal as a strategic alliance. This comes on the back of another similar sized software contract that Wipro had signed just a few days ago, with pharma giant Novartis. The time duration for the deal with Takeda was not disclosed but deals of this size typically last several years. Wipro will be responsible for streamlining the entire software infrastructure of the pharma company thereby reducing costs and improving productivity for the firm. Wipro has a stated two year revenue targeted target of US$ 1 bn from the healthcare vertical. In 4QFY14 this vertical contributed 10.6% of the total revenue of the company. Wipro is trading up 0.8% today.