Market Now: Pharma stocks rally; Natco, Glenmark up 4%

NEW DELHI: Most of the pharma stocks, including Poly Medicure (up 11.63 per cent), Natco Pharma (up 4.26 per cent), Glenmark Pharmaceuticals (up 3.94 per cent), SMS Pharmaceuticals (up 3.56 per cent) and Panacea Biotec (up 3.46 per cent) registered strong gains in Thursday's early trade, helping the BSE Healthcare index extend the gains a the fifth session.

The BSE Healthcare index was trading 169 points up at 13,974 around 10.20 am (IST).

Benchmarks Nifty and Sensex were trading on a cautious note. The Nifty50 index was 14 points up at 9,929, while Sensex was 53 points up at 31,724, around the same time.

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Aurobindo Pharma (up 2.83 per cent), Cadila Healthcare (up 2.58 per cent), Indoco Remedies (up 2.40 per cent), J B Chemicals & Pharmaceuticals (up 2.34 per cent) and Apollo Hospitals Enterprise (up 2.23 per cent) gained over 2 per cent.

Barring telecom, energy and oil & gas, all other sectoral indices were trading in the green on BSE.

Bharti Infratel, ITI, Bharti Airtel, MTNL and Idea Cellular were the top losers telecom stocks.

Oil India, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation, Indian Oil Corporation, Bharat Petroleum Corporation and Oil & natural gas Corporation were the top laggards among oil stocks.

Mahindra & Mahindra, Dr Reddy's, Cipla, NTPC and Sun Pharma were the top gainers of the Sensex kitty.

On the BSE, 1,436 stocks were advancing whereas 661 stocks were lagging and 66 stocks were appearing unchanged.