Indian ADRs add $3.6 bn last week

Indian stocks trading on the American bourses added nearly $3.6 billion to their market capitalisation, with copper producer Sterlite and private sector lender HDFC Bank accounting 70 per cent of the total gains.

For the week ended January 8, Indian entities listed on the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq added $3.6 billion to their market value, with Sterlite and HDFC Bank together adding $2.36 billion to the total valuation.

Sterlite added $1.36 billion to $17.06 billion, while HDFC Bank gained $1 billion to $19.45 billion.

Among the 16 companies trading as American Depository Receipts (ADRs), another major gainer was IT firm Mahindra Satyam whose valuation jumped by $533 million to $3.64 billion.

Meanwhile, IT bellwether Infosys was the major loser during the week. The company has witnessed a value erosion of $416 million to $31.11 billion.

ADRs are bought and sold on American markets just like stocks and are issued in by a bank or a brokerage firm.

Apart from Sterlite, HDFC Bank and Mahindra Satyam, pharma major Dr Reddy's too witnessed a significant gain to its m-cap. It's valuation shot up by $298 million to $4.38 billion.

The market capitalisation of auto major Tata Motors increased by $243 million to $7.83 billion during the week.

Telecom majors-- Tata Communications and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam-- went up by $198 million and $161 million, respectively.

Other ADRs gainer include-- IT companies-- Wipro and Patni Computers, BPO companies--WNS Holdings, private sector lender ICICI Bank, Internet firms--Reddif.com, and Sify whose valuation increased in the range of $1 million to $88 million.

Outsourcing firm Genpact's market capitalisation dropped by $28 million, while rival company EXL Service Holdings's valuation slipped by $4 million.

The US labour market has been showing some improvement as the unemployment rate for December remained unchanged at 10 per cent-- at the November level-- even while it saw another 85,000 job losses.

The latest data from the US Labour Department show that non-farm payroll employment dropped by 85,000 while the jobless rate was flat at 10 per cent in December.

On Friday, the US markets ended in the positive territory, with Dow Jones ending up 11.33 points at 10,618.19 and the S&P 500 settling up 3.29 points to 1,144.98. Besides, tech-heavy Nasdaq was up 17.12 points at 2,317.17.