MF, HNIs lap up DRL shares on better earnings hope

Shares of Dr Reddy’s Laboratories have risen about 25% in the past two weeks, beating returns from benchmark indices during the period, despite the company’s fourth quarter earnings disappointing the Street.

The market buzz is that a MF, owned by an FI, and a few wealthy investors, who trade through a Mumbai-based listed broking firm, have been the buyers in the stock, of late.

On Thursday, the stock rose 2.2% to Rs 1,498.05. While some say such purchases have mostly been to include a ‘defensive bet’ in their portfolios in a choppy market, others feel there is more to it.

In its interaction with investors and analysts after the fourth quarter results, the company, it is believed, painted a positive earnings outlook over the next couple of years, led by some product launches.

(Contributed by Nishanth Vasudevan, Apurv Gupta, Shailesh Menon & Harish Rao)