Benchmarks continue firm trade; Sensex holds 25,600 mark

Indian equity benchmarks continued their firm trade in the late afternoon session on account of buying in frontline blue chip counters and taking cues from Asian counterparts. The sentiments were on optimistic mood after the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in its latest report stated that Indian economic growth is gaining momentum, on the back of various measures taken by the government to bolster the economy. Investors are also eyeing the data on inflation based on the combined Consumer Price Index (CPI) for rural and urban India scheduled to be released today. Traders were seen piling up positions in Auto, Consumer Durables and PSU while selling was witnessed in TECK, IT and FMCG sector stocks. In scrip specific development, Wockhardt was trading in red after the pharma major reported 93.82% decline in its consolidated net profit to Rs 19.95 crore for the first quarter ended June 30 as import bans by USFDA continued to hit sales.

On the global front, the Asian markets were trading mostly in green, while the European markets traded on pessimistic note. Back home, the NSE Nifty and BSE Sensex were trading above their psychological 7,650 and 25,600 levels respectively. The market breadth on BSE was negative in the ratio of 1338:1386 while 125 scrips remained unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 25668.52, up by 149.28 points or 0.58% after trading in a range of 25645.79 and 25744.51. There were 15 stocks advancing against 15 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.15%, while Small cap index up by 0.20%.

The gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Auto up by 1.06%, Consumer Durables up by 0.99%, PSU up by 0.92%, Oil & Gas up by 0.83% and Capital Goods up by 0.58% while, TECK down by 0.52%, IT down by 0.44%, FMCG down by 0.37% were the losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Tata Motors up by 5.05%, GAIL India up by 4.37%, HDFC up by 3.65%, ONGC up by 2.46% and Sun Pharmaceutical Industries up by 2.44%.

On the flip side, Bharti Airtel down by 1.74%, Hindalco down by 1.11%, Mahindra & Mahindra down by 1.02%, BHEL down by 0.88% and Hero MotoCorp down by 0.88% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, Finance Ministry Arun Jailtley has asserted that achieving Rs 6.23 lakh crore indirect tax collection target for current fiscal remains a challenge but efforts are on to attain the collection target by taking measures to boost growth. The government has budgeted to collect over Rs 6.23 lakh crore from indirect taxes in the current fiscal, which requires a growth rate of around 20 percent over the collection in 2013-14.

Arun Jaitley has stressed that tax collection depend upon the overall revival of the economy and in order to spur growth, the government has been taking measures over the past two months for improving areas of manufacturing and infrastructure. Finance Minister further added that the government is in favor of trade facilitation, which leads to substantial reduction in transactional cost for the businesses. Minister emphasized that investment in strengthening the tax infrastructure in the country will bring better returns to the exchequer of the government. He also laid emphasis upon reducing tax litigation and tax settlement mechanism to unlock the money held up due to litigation. He asked the officers of the Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) to work as a facilitator for tax payers and at the same time take action wherever they find cases of tax evasion.

Indirect taxes include customs duty, central excise duty and service tax. Indirect tax collections grew by 4.5 percent to Rs 1,13,570 crore during April-June quarter of the current fiscal as compared to Rs 1,08,639 crore during the same period of previous financial year. Tax collection is the major source of revenue for the government. The government estimates to garner Rs 13.64 lakh crore from both direct and indirect tax collections during the FY15. In the previous fiscal year, tax collections fell short of target by a whopping Rs 77,000 crore as the government collected Rs 11.58 lakh crore against the budget estimate of Rs 12.35 lakh crore.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 7663.75, up by 37.80 points or 0.50% after trading in a range of 7654.80 and 7691.45. There were 25 stocks advancing against 25 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Tata Motors up by 5.24% and GAIL India up by 4.37% and HDFC up by 3.32% and Ultratech Cement up by 2.50% and ONGC up by 2.12%.

On the flip side, Bharti Airtel down by 1.73%, Hindalco down by 1.08%, Hero MotoCorp down by 1.06%, Mahindra & Mahindra down by 0.96% and ITC down by 0.91% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in green; Straits Times increased 1.76 points or 0.05% to 3,308.21, KOSPI Index increased 2.1 points or 0.1% to 2,041.47, Jakarta Composite increased 17.8 points or 0.35% to 5,131.03, Nikkei 225 increased 30.79 points or 0.2% to 15,161.31 and Hang Seng increased 43.39 points or 0.18% to 24,689.41.

On the flip side, Taiwan Weighted decreased 9.79 points or 0.11% to 9,163.12, Shanghai Composite decreased 3.06 points or 0.14% to 2,221.60 and FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI decreased 1.4 points or 0.08% to 1,847.92.

The European markets were trading in red; Germany’s DAX decreased 35.34 points or 0.38% to 9,145.40, France’s CAC decreased 21.74 points or 0.52% to 4,175.96 and UK’s FTSE 100 decreased 3.35 points or 0.05% to 6,629.47.