Stocks In Action: October 18, 2012

According to media reports, Odisha Power Transmission Corporation Ltd (OPTCL) plans to implement a host of transmission projects to cater to the state’s power evacuation needs and is all set to form two separate joint ventures with central PSUs viz. Power Grid Corporation of India Ltd (PGCIL) and Mahanadi Coalfields Ltd (MCL). The state government has signed MoUs with 29 IPPs (independent power producers) with a generation capacity of around 37,000 MW with the state share at 6,300 MW. A transmission capacity of 19,500 MVA was needed in the state to evacuate the surplus power generated by these IPPs. The stock may see some volatility in today’s trade.

Reliance Industries is in talks with Venezuela’s Petroleos de Venezuela (PdVSA) to produce heavy oil in the South American OPEC nation, PdVSA’s executive director Fadi Kabboul said yesterday. Venezuela’s state oil company is in talks with both RIL as well as state-owned Oil & Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) for exploration of the Ayacucho and Boyaca fields, he said at the Petrotech 2012 conference. RIL had last month signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with PdVSA to develop a project in the Orinoco extra-heavy crude belt. Also, the firm signed a new agreement to buy more Venezuelan oil for its twin refineries at Jamnagar in Gujarat.  On the back of this news the scrip may see some positive movement in today’s trade.

Infotech Enterprises Limited announced its result for the September quarter wherein the net profit witnessed a 63.66 per cent growth to Rs 50.31 crore as compared to Rs 30.74 crore in the corresponding quarter last year. The revenue for the quarter under review stood at Rs 477.12 crore as against Rs 372.6 crore during the same period a year ago, reflecting a growth of 28 per cent. The company’s PAT, however, declined by 22.25 per cent (Rs 64.71 crore in Q1 of FY13) sequentially on account of notional foreign exchange losses on restatement of foreign currency receivables due to rupee appreciation in the current quarter, as compared to the depreciation in Q1. We believe that the company has posted decent result for the quarter and one may see some upside movement in the stock today.

According to a report in Business Standard, Lupin Pharmaceuticals has received approval for its Irbesartan tablets, used for treating hypertension, from the US Food & Drugs Administration (USFDA). The tablets are available in 75-300 mg strengths and are AB-rated generic equivalent of Sanofi Aventis’ Avapro tablets, Lupin said in a statement. The Avapro tablets had annual U.S. sales of about USD 400.7 million in June, as per IMS’ health sales data. Lupin is the fifth-largest generic player in the U.S. with 5.1 per cent market share by prescriptions. The company said it is also among the top 10 pharmaceutical players in India, Japan and South Africa. This is positive news for the company and the scrip may see some upside movement today.

Among the companies to announce their Q2FY13 results today are ACC, Ambuja Cements, Dish TV India, Dunlop India, Gujarat NRE Coke, Hindustan Zinc, JK Paper, Persistent Systems and Talwalkar. These stocks will be volatile today and the market direction would be decided by the results they post.