D-Street Buzz: Nifty Pharma gains led by Biocon; Lupin; volumes of Sun Pharma, Aurobindo Pharma rise

The Indian stock market has slipped into the red in a volatile session with Sensex down 170.60 points or 0.5 percent at 33938.94, and the Nifty shed 49.10 points or 0.49 percent at 10012.40.

Among the sectors, Nifty Pharma added over a percent led by Sun Pharma, Biocon, Lupin and Torrent Pharma which gained 2 percent each followed by Aurobindo Pharma, Cipla, Divis Labs and Dr Reddy's Labs among others.

Share price of Aurobindo Pharma gained after the company reported better numbers for the quarter ended March 2020. The company's consolidated net profit after JV share and minority interest was up by 45.2 percent to Rs 849.8 crore for the quarter ended March 31, 2020, against Rs 585.4 crore during the same quarter in FY19. Research house Credit Suisse has maintained a neutral call on the stock with target price at Rs 665 per share.

In the latest development, United States Food and Drug Administration (US FDA) issued ‘Form 483’ with 9 observations to the company's wholly owned step-down subsidiary AuroLife Pharma LLC’s oral solid manufacturing facility situated at Dayton, New Jersey.

It was also one of the most active stocks on NSE in terms of value with 1,34,99,500 shares being traded at 11:38 hours. Sun Pharma added over 2 percent with 94,04,379 shares being traded on NSE.

Pritesh Mehta, Lead Technical Analyst - Institutional Equities at YES Securities is of the view that The ratio of Nifty Pharma index versus Nifty has picked up steam triggering a double top buy breakout post a pause in last few weeks, which contributed to a rally of 5 percent in Nifty Pharma index. We expect the ongoing outperformance of Pharma stocks to continue against the index.