Mid and smallcaps buck the trend

Thu, 5 Aug Closing

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Profit booking in key index heavyweights dragged the benchmark indices into the negative territory in the final trading hour. However, the mid and smallcap stocks managed to buck the trend. Profit booking in energy, banking and pharma stocks led the indices to shed all the gains seen in the early hours of trade. The BSE Sensex lost around 45 points (down 0.2%) today whereas NSE Nifty was down around 20 points (down 0.4%). The BSE Midcap and smallcap indices, however, managed to stay in the positive.

While the Asian indices closed a mixed bag today, India trailed the pack of losers. Europe is trading firm currently. The rupee was placed at 46.18 to the dollar at the time of writing.

Although the Finance Minister disapproves the RBI's aggressive monetary tightening stance, the same seems to have tamed inflation, at least temporarily. As per the latest data, India's food and fuel inflation marginally eased in the week to July 24. While expectation of better agricultural supplies could have also been the cause of lower price rise, tightened liquidity seems to have helped. The fuel price index rose by 14.2% YoY as against a rise of 14.3% in the previous week after the government hiked fuel prices in end-June. Meanwhile the food price index rose 9.5% as against 9.7% rise the previous week, with prices of fruits and vegetables falling by 3%.

As per a business daily, Tata Power, the country's largest private sector power utility, has been shortlisted by the Indonesian government to develop a 200 MW geothermal capacity. The project would need an investment of about Rs 30 bn. While this is Tata Power's foray into non-conventional energy, the company is also ramping up its local operations in green energy. It plans to scale up wind capacity to 500 mw from the current 200 MW, and will develop solar capacity of about 50 MW. Further it has plans for an India-based geothermal capacity of 5 mw by the end of 2011. Tata Power has targeted raising its total local generation capacity, both conventional and non-conventional to 8,300 MW by FY12, from the current capacity of 3,000 MW.

Pharma major Glenmark has received US pharma regulator's approval to sell generic Clotrimazole cream, used in treating fungal infections, in the American market. Glenmark Generics Inc, a US-based subsidiary of the company has received Abbreviated New Drug Application (ANDA) approval from the US FDA. According to research firm IMS Health, Clotrimazole cream has achieved annual sales of US$ 26 m in US in FY10. The product is the generic version of Taro's Clotrimazole Cream USP and will be manufactured at the company's facility in Goa.

The company reported 10% YoY growth in revenues from the generics business in 1QFY11. Revenues from the US grew by 6% YoY. During the quarter, Glenmark filed 4 ANDAs with the US FDA. Also, the company now has 56 products in the market and 50 ANDAs in various stages of approval with the US FDA.