The current rally seems to have some dept as pharma stocks witnessed spurt in both prices and volumes. The uptrend has, probably, provided an opportunity to some investors to book profits. In fact, these counters have seen some value investing as most of these scrips are quoting at attractive valuations.

The rally has been widespread with most of the stocks posting substantial gains. Select scrips in the sector witnessed on an average 15.4 per cent appreciation over their October 19-close, when the BSE Sensex hit the rock-bottom.

Lending strong support to the uptrend, volumes have also shot up by an average of 824 per cent in these stocks over the same period. In fact, an uptrend was due for long, since the pharmaceutical industry holds great potential for growth.

According to market sources, these counters attracted strong buying from mutual funds and foreign financial institutions. Most of the A group companies saw double digit growth in prices with Wockhardt Ltd topping the list with over 25.5 per cent rise in prices followed closely by Cipla with 25.37 per cent as the Sensex recovered from its ebb.

Aurobindo Pharmaceuticals gained the most in the B1 group with 36.71 per cent rise in prices over the same period. However, there was less movement in the B2 sector where the rally was limited to some select stocks.

Novartis and Glaxo, however, are not in the list of gainers. In fact, Novartis saw over 22 per cent fall in prices from Rs 739 to Rs 576. However, volumes shot up from 3916 shares traded on October 19 to 47280 shares on November 8. The other loser is Glaxo which saw about 4 per cent decline in prices from Rs 440 to Rs 423.10. Turnover on this counter also increased by over seven times. The strong traded volumes show a sign of strength in their movements.

The turnover in Lupin Labs saw the highest increase in both A and B1 group. Its turnover shot up by a whopping 4178.59 per cent on November 8 as compared to October 19. In the A group, the select companies saw three-fold to 11-fold increase in turnover. These figures indicate the strength of the current rise in pharma stocks. The sector had also declared decent financial results in the quarter ended September, 2000.

Another noticable factor is that more of multinational pharma companies figured in the list of gainers than their Indian counterparts. On the other hand, both the losers from the A group, Novartis and Cipla are also MNCs.