Sensex Continues to Trade on a Flat Note; Pharma Stocks Outperform

The BSE benchmark continued to trade on a flat note in the late morning deals a day ahead of Reserve Bank of India's policy review.

 

The 50-share Nifty was trading close to its important psychological level of 8,600 led by selling in blue-chip stocks like HDFC, Reliance Industries, TCS and Coal India.

 

Meanwhile, the broader markets were seen outperforming the benchmark indices as the BSE mid-cap index advanced 0.7 per cent and the small-cap index jumped 1 per cent.

 

Banking stocks were trading with a negative bias on caution that the RBI will not go in for a rate cut tomorrow due to unseasonal rainfall which has destroyed crops and is likely to put pressure on the inflation, analysts said. 

 

The banking sub-index, Bank Nifty was down 0.3 per cent. Frontline banking stocks like Punjab National Bank, Bank of Baroda, Axis Bank, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank and Canara Bank were trading in the red.

 

IT, metal and power stocks were also facing the heat of selling pressure.

 

At the same time, pharma stocks were among the top Nifty gainers. The BSE healthcare index was the top sectoral gainer, up 2.2 per cent after pharma giant Sun Pharma jumped nearly 4 per cent to Rs 1,122 after Ranbaxy shares stopped trading on the exchanges post-merger of the two companies.

 

Ranbaxy, which was merged into Sun Pharma stopped trading on the exchanges from today. Shareholders of Ranbaxy will get 0.8 share of Sun Pharma for a share of Ranbaxy.

 

Cipla, Lupin and Dr Reddy's Labs were also trading over 1 per cent higher on the NSE.

 

Among the other gainers, Mahindra & Mahindra, ONGC, Tata Motors, ACC, Idea Cellular, BPCL and GAIL India were also trading higher on the Nifty. While, HCL Tech, HDFC, Tata Steel, Wipro, Tata Power, Coal India, NMDC, Reliance Industries and Sesa Sterlite were among the losers.

 

At 12:29 p.m., the Sensex was up 1 point at 28,261 and the 50-share Nifty gained 2 points to 8,588.