Pharma stocks lead the gains

Tue, 6 Oct 01:30 pm

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After trading on a firm note during the morning session of the day, the Indian equity markets continued to trade positively in the post noon trading session. Gains were led by stocks from pharma, and consumer durable segments. Banking and IT stocks are trading on a weak note.

The BSE-Sensex is trading up 57 points (0.2%) and the NSE-Nifty is trading up by 4 points (0.1%). The BSE Mid Cap index and the BSE Small Cap index are trading up by 0.2% and 0.5% respectively. Gold prices, per 10 grams, are trading at Rs 26,480 levels. Silver price, per kilogram, is trading at Rs 36,774 levels. Crude oil is trading at Rs 3,016 per barrel. At the time of writing, the rupee stood at 65.41 to the US dollar.

Banking stocks are trading on a negative note with UCO Bank and Indian Overseas Bank leading the losses. As per a leading financial daily, India's second largest lender Bank of Baroda is investigating a bill discounting fraud to the tune of Rs 3.5 bn. Reportedly, one of the bank offices in Ahmedabad ended up discounting bills against which the underlying trade transactions were fake or non-existent. Further, for this, the bank has suspended a senior official after it stumbled upon the irregularities in its Ahmedabad operations. The bank is contemplating whether to provide the amount in the September-quarter earnings. The matter has been reported to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). Public sector banks (PSBs) have generally been callous in dealing with frauds and corruption in the past. But they need to pull up their socks soon. As one of our analyst, Madhu Gupta, states that the piling up of bad loans has adversely impacted earnings and financial soundness of PSBs and so they urgently need to tighten up their systems to bridge the huge gap with private sector banks. The scrip of Bank of Baroda is trading down by 1.5%.

Most of the stocks in the automobile sector are trading firm with Tata Motors and Escorts witnessing maximum buying interest. As per an article in Livemint, India's largest carmaker Maruti Suzuki has reported 1.5% rise in its production in September 2015 on a YoY basis. The production during the month of September stood at 1,18,013 units as against 1,16,234 units in same month last year. Of the total, the company manufactured 40,033 vehicles under mini segment that includes Alto, A Star and Wagon R. Furthermore, it manufactured 50,062 vehicles under the compact segment; 7,200 vehicles under super compact and midsize; 8,361 units under utility vehicles segment and 12,357 units under vans category. The company has registered a rise of 3.7%in its total car sales for the month of September 2015 on a YoY basis. Stock of Maruti Suzuki is trading down by 1% on the BSE.