Top performing pharma stocks in August

The market is inching up by taking cues from the global markets in spite of the surge in the COVID-19 cases. The pharma stocks are rallying, which shows its maximum strength in 2020, so far.

Carrying forward the momentum of the previous months, August saw at least 30 pharma companies gaining more than 10 per cent in the first 10 days of the month (keeping a market cap of Rs 300 crore). If we consider only those pharma companies with a market cap greater than Rs 300 crore, which covers large-cap pharma companies, mid-cap, small-cap and micro-cap pharma names, the top 30 companies by returns on an average delivered 20 per cent returns.

Suven Life Sciences (40 per cent) is the top gainer in the list of small-cap pharma stocks, followed by Valiant Organics (39.98 per cent) and Strides Pharma Science (39 per cent), if we consider the performance in the first 10 days of August.

Some of the large-cap pharma names that caught investors’ attention in August are Divi’s Laboratories (19 per cent), Cipla (10.46 per cent), Torrent Pharma (13.11 per cent), Alkem Laboratories (11.84 per cent), Ipca Laboratories (11.45 per cent) and Alembic Pharma (10.32 per cent).

Laurus Lab, by recording gains of 20.51 per cent, was one of the best performing mid-cap pharma stocks in August, so far.

Pharma index has given a horizontal trendline resistance breakout and the BSE Healthcare index has gained nearly 6 per cent in August. Sensex is up by 2.12 per cent in a similar period even as BSE Small-cap index is up by 6.26 per cent while, BSE Mid-cap index sizzled by 4.6 per cent in August, so far.

Below is a table highlighting top 15 stocks with highest returns since the beginning of August 2020.