Sustained buying fuels indices

Fri, 22 Jul Closing

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Indian stock markets began the day's proceedings on a firm note and maintained this buoyancy throughout the trading session today. Strong buying across index heavyweights fuelled the indices and ensured that they closed well above the dotted line. While the BSE-Sensex closed higher by around 286 points (up 1.5%), the NSE-Nifty closed higher by around 92 points (up 2%). The BSE Midcap and BSE Small cap also did well and notched gains of 1% each. Gains were largely seen in banking and auto stocks.

As regards global markets, Asian indices closed firm today while European indices have also opened in the green. The rupee was trading at Rs 44.36 to the dollar at the time of writing.

Barring Biocon, most pharma stocks such as Sun Pharma, Dr.Reddy's and Sun Pharma closed firm today. As per a leading business daily, Biocon's contract research subsidiary Syngene has entered into an agreement with US based Endo Pharmaceuticals to expand their collaboration to develop molecules to fight cancer. It must be noted that both the companies had tied up for drug discovery collaboration in March last year. As per the terms of the agreement signed last year, Endo would retain all rights to the molecules developed while Syngene would receive research fees, milestone payments and success fees from Endo. Syngene did well in 1QFY11 as its revenues grew by a robust 21% YoY led by expansion by existing clients, addition of new clients and evolution of the business mix towards higher value services. Thus, this deal bodes well for the company especially since the therapeutic field of oncology (anti-cancer) is one of the fastest growing classes in the global pharma market.

Hindustan Zinc announced its results for the quarter ended June 2011. The company's topline grew by 45% YoY and was driven both by volumes and realisations. However, the latter contributed more to the overall improvement. The company posted a 17% increase in refined zinc output, however the same for refined lead came in at 6% YoY. Production for silver also came in higher and stood at 8% YoY. However, the major contribution to topline growth came from higher realisations. Although commodity prices have softened in recent times, they are significantly higher on a YoY basis and this helped give revenues a big boost. With expenditure growing at a much slower rate of 32% YoY, the already high operating margins of the company received a further boost and increased 4% YoY to 55.9% in 1QFY12. PBT for the quarter came in higher by 70% YoY, an improvement over 56% YoY growth in operating profits, mainly on account of higher other income and better operating leverage. At 68% YoY, the net profit growth for the quarter has more or less come in line with the impressive PBT growth. The stock closed higher today.