Indian markets slipped deeper into the red during the post noon trading session. Barring stocks from Healthcare, IT and Metal sectors all the sectoral indices are trading in negative territory. Banking stocks are witnessing maximum selling pressure.
BSE-Sensex is down by 114 points and NSE-Nifty is trading down by 33 points. However, BSE Mid Cap is trading up by 0.22% while the BSE Small Cap Cap index is trading up by 0.31%.The rupee is trading at 61.86 to the US dollar.
Most of the Indian pharma stocks are trading in green with Dishman pharma and Wockhardt Ltd leading the pack of gainers. As per the financial daily, Ranbaxy laboratories is looking to buy a facility in India to manufacture the drugs for the US market. Reportedly, the company is looking for several options to shift its blockbuster drugs which are pending approval in the US market. The acquired facility will help the company to reduce its risk arising out of the issues in its three of the four US approved facilities. Further, this step comes after the company had received import alert to its Mohali unit in India. Currently, all the three manufacturing plants located in India are undergoing USFDA surveillance, and hence the company's only operational facility is Ohm laboratories located in US. Buying new facility in India will help in cost arbitrage. Ranbaxy was trading up by 2.1% at the time of writing.
Majority of the public sector banks are trading in the red with Bank of Maharashtra and Bank of Baroda being the biggest losers. Indian Bank and Dena Bank are among the few stocks trading in the green. As per a leading financial daily, State Bank of India is the largest bank in the country but lags behind in critical parameters such as business and profit generation capacity according to a report released by Reserve bank of India (RBI). The report titled 'A Profile of Banks: 2012-13' released by RBI states that in FY13, the business per employee of SBI stood at Rs 94.3 m while the overall average for banks was Rs 121.3 m. The average profit contribution by an SBI employee was Rs 6.5 lakh as compared to banking aggregate of Rs 8.3 lakh. Even the net non performing assets (NPA) of the bank at 2.1% of total advances were higher than the bank aggregate value of 1.7%in FY13. However the bank has scored on the profitability front, reporting a net interest margin (NIM) of 3.06% as compared to bank aggregate value of 2.79% during the year. SBI's stock is currently trading down by 1.5%.
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