Markets close marginally positive

Mon, 24 Dec Closing

   Previous Close   

   Pre-Open   

   09:30 am   

   11:30 am   

   01:30 pm   

The Indian stock markets started the day on a positive note and continued to trade positive for the bulk of today's session. However towards the final hour of close markets moved lower and once again slumped back towards yesterday's close. Finally the indices closed flat with a positive bias. The BSE-Sensex closed positive, higher by around 13 points (up 0.07%). The NSE-Nifty also closed higher by around 8 points (up 0.14%). The smaller indices also had a positive day on the bourses. The BSE Mid Cap index closed 0.4% higher and the BSE Small Cap 0.3% higher. Realty and IT stocks saw a bulk of the gains today. Metals and oil and gas stocks closed lower.

As regards global markets, Asian indices had a mixed outing today. European indices opened the day on a mixed note, however most markets were shut today. The rupee was trading at Rs 54.99 to the dollar at the time of writing.

If you think a 3.5 fold growth in the last 10 years is not good enough, how about a 5-fold growth in the next 7 years? This is the rate at which the Indian Government is projecting the domestic pharma industry to grow by the year 2020. In order to promote domestic production of drugs, the 12th Five year plan has recommended capacity building in the private sector of international standards. This would enable the industry to develop competence in advanced areas of drug manufacturing like dedicated research facility in bulk drugs, improving processes of manufacturing generics and APIs. The industry at present is the 3rd largest in terms of volumes and around 13th in value terms. Sector stocks closed with a positive bias today with leading gainers being IPCA Labs, Glenmark Pharma and Torrent Pharma.

The US$ 10 bn Russian sovereign wealth fund - Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) and State Bank of India (SBI) plan to set up a US$ 2 bn investment consortium. Each entity is expected to invest upto US$ 1 bn each. This will be aimed at promoting mutual investments between the two countries. A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for setting up this consortium is expected to be signed shortly. This is as part of the Russian President Vladimir Putin's official visit to India. Once the agreement is in place, RDIF and SBI would collaborate in order to facilitate access to long-term capital in Russia and India. The emphasis would be on projects geared towards higher purchasing power of the population, creation of value addition in the natural resources segment as well as developing manufacturing businesses and service sector companies.