Indian stock market indices have been trading firm over the last two hours of trade on the back of buying interest in heavyweights. All sectoral indices are in the green led by banking and IT stocks.
The BSE- Sensex is up by 403 points and NSE- Nifty is up by 117 points. BSE Midcap and BSE Small cap indices are up by 1.8% and 1.5% respectively. The rupee is trading at 45.82 to the US dollar.
PSU Banking stocks are trading in the green led by Dena Bank and UCO Bank. According to a leading financial daily, the PSU banks' high exposure to sectors such as power and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) is resulting in troubles at a time when the economy is slowing down. Power, textiles and real estate are more dependent on the macroeconomic conditions.
It has been observed in the recent past that public sector banks reported rise in bad loans. The private banks however have been able to maintain their asset quality. In April- June 2011, the bad loan provisioning for PSU banks was up almost 100% while that for private banks declined by 30%. It may be noted here that PSU banks finance 7.2% of all loans to the power sector.
Pharma stocks are also finding investor favour. Orchid chemicals and Dr Reddy's laboratory are the biggest gainers while Ranbaxy Laboratory and Apollo hospital are the biggest losers. According to a leading financial daily, pharmaceutical major Wockhardt is planning to launch 12-15 products in the US market this fiscal. The company has already received approval for 7 abbreviated new drug applications (ANDA) this year. Currently the company has an excellent range of existing products in US with more than 60 products in its portfolio. However the company has not specified any details of the products which it intends to launch. Apart from US, the company also plans to launch new products in Europe. It intends to launch 9 new products in UK alone and plans to enter other European markets where it does not have any operations.
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