The Hindu Business Line : Hospital stocks betting on medical tourism

THE overall negative sentiment in the market affected stock prices across-the-board on Friday and clouded even the positive fundamentals. But there were variations in impact depending on the level of growth expectations or apprehensions.

Hospital stocks, which did not quite move against the current, however, opened strong and scaled up during the session.

Apollo Hospital, leader among the pack, in fact finished with a small gain at Rs 416. Indraprastha Medical and Kovai Medical finished in the red after recording initial gains.According to market sources, the growing story in medical tourism did not evaporate and a resistance against a very sharp correction in the hospital stocks was evident. Very low traded volume also suggested that selling was restricted and the strong growth expectations did not get knocked down.

CV better than passenger cars

Commercial vehicle stocks, such as Tata Motors and Ashok Leyland, declined but fared better than the passenger car counters of Maruti Udyog and Hidustan Motors. This was in tandem with market expectations that the CV sales would grow at a higher rate than that for the passenger cars.

The September numbers have shown that the growth rate in sales (against September 2004) for commercial vehicles was at 14.3 per cent compared to 9.7 per cent for passenger cars.

The loss in Tata Motors was limited to 1.11 per cent at Rs 534 and in Ashok Leyland to 1.59 per cent at Rs 27.90 on Friday. Maruti declined 4.43 per cent at Rs 533.40 and Hindustan Motors dropped by 3.28 per cent at Rs 38.30.

The comparative traded volumes - lower than the fortnightly average in case of Tata Motors and higher in case of Maruti - were also instructive.

Cement scrips down on number pressure

Cement shares were down as the quarterly result (to September 30, 2005) for ACC was not up to the market expectation and hence, dampened the general sentiment. However, market sources said, investors were not expecting similar performance from other cement companies. While ACC finished down 5.24 per cent at Rs 442, Grasim declined by just 1.43 per cent at Rs 1211.50, Dalmia Cement slipped by 2.61 per cent and Kesoram by 1.05 per cent.

Jayanta Mallick

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