Indian stock markets continued to trade in the negative during the previous two hours of trade after opening weak earlier today. Sectoral indices traded weak except pharma stocks.
The BSE-Sensex is trading lower by 107 points and NSE-Nifty is trading down by 40 points. BSE Mid Cap and BSE Small Cap indices are trading lower by 0.4% and 0.5% respectively. The rupee is trading at 54.87 to the US dollar.
Indian pharma stocks are trading in the green led by Aurobindo Pharma and Torrent Pharma. As per a leading financial daily, Indian pharmaceutical company Lupin has got an approval from the US Food and Drug Administration (US FDA) for its oral contraceptives. The contraceptives in the form of tablets are generic version of Yasmin by Bayer Healthcare which has annual sales of US$ 275 m in the US. The oral contraceptive market in the US is growing at 10% per annum. However, there are not many players competing in this space resulting in more profitability for existing ones. Companies do not get into this space because of complex process of manufacturing these products.
Energy stocks are trading in the red led by Cairn India and Indraprastha Gas. According to a leading financial daily, Reliance Industries is planning to invest USD $10 bn on 4G network of its subsidiary Infotel Broadband (IBSL). Reliance intends to invest in its LTE (4G) network and has turned to SPIRIT's software products for voice and video calls over LTE instead of waiting for phone makers who are slow in offering handsets transmitting voice and video in 4G networks. Reliance will be able to offer its subscribers high-quality services as an alternative to Skype - an application for making voice calls using internet connection, over cellular networks. At present, most of the people are able to make free calls using Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) application like Skype but in India such calls are allowed only between personal computers to personal computers.
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