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Skindia GDR Index slips a tad to 608.61; hotels, fertilisers up; cement, auto, textiles down

The Indian global depository receipts or GDRs eased marginally during the week ended February 4. The market operators lost their interest in trading, following rumours that the Telugu Desam Party, a key ally of the coalition government, had withdrawn its support to the Bharatiya Janata Party-led ruling combine.

During the week, the Skindia GDR Index and the BSE Sensex fell by 0.76 points and 56.53 points respectively. As the fall registered by the underlying shares was much more, the premia of the 60 GDRs jumped up to 9.52 per cent on February 4 from 4.64 per cent on January 28 and the average spreads of the 37 most actively traded GDRs widened to 8.65 per cent on February 4 from 8.08 per cent on January 28.

The Skindia GDR index declined by 0.12 per cent to 608.61 points on February 4 as compared to the previous week's close of 609.38 points. During the same period, the Skindia GDR index P/E ratio also dipped by 0.34 per cent to 25.54 from 25.62 while the Skindia GDR Index premium gained by 27.06 per cent to 19.10 per cent from 15.03 per cent.

In GDRs, hotels and fertilisers were the only gainers with a gain of 5.60 per cent and 4.21 per cent. The top losers were cement, auto and textiles which dropped by 8.17 per cent, 3.54 per cent and 3.46 per cent respectively.

In shares the hotel sector was the only gainer with 0.13 per cent, the top losers was cables depreciating by 15.42 per cent while fertiliser sector remained unchanged.

The pharma sector has gained in strength in the first month of the year 1999. During the fourth quarter, the pharma GDR on an average lost by 2.43 per cent while the Skindia GDR index moved up by 3.49 per cent in the same period. Out of the four GDR pharma stocks, only Ranbaxy was able to provide positive returns of 5.32 per cent in fourth quarter, whereas Core Health, Dr Reddy's and Wockhardt had 7.69 per cent, 4.35 per cent and 2.99 per cent depreciation in their values respectively.

With the turn of the year, the fortunes of the pharma stocks also turned around. In the first month of this year, the GDRs of this sector have registered an average gain of 13.84 per cent. The gain has been contributed by all the pharma GDR scrips. The highest gain has been made by Wockhardt which appreciated by 19.23 per cent to $ 7.75 followed by Ranbaxy at 14.75 per cent to $ 10.50, Dr Reddy's and Core Health which profited by 11.36 per cent and 10 per cent respectively.

The rising interest in the pharma stocks could also be seen from the fact that NASDAQ is targeting Indian pharma companies for listing. In shares also, the story is more or less the same.

Following annoucement of the third quarter results, the shares on an average fell by 0.24 per cent against a fall of 1.51 per cent in the BSE Sensex.

In the first month of 1999, the shares have appreciated an average of 15.25 per cent as compared to a gain of 5.75 per cent in the BSE Sensex. Here again, Wockhardt is the top gainer with a rise of 27.74 per cent to Rs 337.50, followed by Ranbaxy and Dr Reddy's appreciating by 20.13 per cent to Rs 321 and 15.24 per cent to Rs 563.50 respectively. Core Health was a loser in shares slipping by 2.13 per cent to Rs 13.80.

UNI

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