Benchmarks pare early gains amid profit booking

Indian equity markets erased early gains but still trading in positive territory amid some profit booking in index heavyweight. A stronger-than-expected US jobs data, recent encouraging reports from the home front on manufacturing and services sectors and expectations of a series of rate cuts from the Reserve Bank of India were contributing to the market's impressive display this morning. On sectoral front, stocks from realty, capital goods, metal and consumer durables sectors were trading firm. While a few stocks from oil sector were trading down. On the global front, Asian bourses are quite cautious and trading mixed. Back home, the market breadth favoring the positive trend; there were 1,889 shares on the gaining side against 678 shares on the losing side while 81 shares remained unchanged.

 The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 17,727.07, up by 122.11 points or 0.69%. The index has touched a high and a low of 17,829.72 and 17,723.10 respectively. There were 25 stocks advancing against just 5 declining ones on the index.

Broader indices too were performing in tandem with the benchmarks; the BSE Mid cap and Small cap indices were up by 1.67% and 1.97% respectively.  

The top gainers on the BSE sectoral space were, Realty up 4.07%, Capital Goods up by 2.01%, Metal up by 1.65%, Consumer Durables up by 1.47% and PSU up by 1.45% were the major gainers, while Oil & Gas down by 0.04% was the only loser on the BSE sectoral space.

The top gainers on the Sensex were DLF up by 2.80%, SBI up by 2.72%, Sterlite Industries up by 2.36%, L&T up by 2.12% and BHEL up by 1.97%. On the flip side, Tata Power down by 2.18%, GAIL down by 0.59%, Reliance down by 0.50%, NTPC down 0.34% and Wipro down by 0.05% were the top losers on the index.

Meanwhile, in a move, which would reveal black money, tax fudging and instances of criminal financing in the country, the 10-digit alphanumeric number-Permanent Account Number (PAN) card is likely to become the most potent device for the Income Tax Department in the forthcoming financial year. Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) is set to launch a new drive against those who have ‘not furnished their PAN’ while entering into high value transactions. The drive will end on March 20, 2012 eleven days before the current fiscal closes.

The drive is being launched on the recommendations of a high-level committee appointed by the CBDT last year to find those taxpayers who have gone missing without paying tax estimated to the tune of Rs 101,836 crore at present. The new PANs will be fed into the system and then whenever a transaction is done using that identity; a flow chart of all credit/debit cards, banking and other transactions from it will get displayed for the officer investigating.

This system will not only bring about a mechanism of non-intrusive investigation by department without troubling the taxpayer but will also streamline the financial data of each taxpayer for his assessing officer. All such cases will be required to furnish their PAN if they already have one or apply immediately if they do not have one.

The CBDT has also asked in the latest directive that such people will also be required to explain the source of the high value investments, deposits, expenditure and whether these were properly explained in the I-T returns filed by them. The CBDT further spelt out that there are ‘penal consequences’ of either not reporting or obtaining a PAN card.

The S&P CNX Nifty is currently trading at 5,353.65, up by 27.80 points or 0.52%. The index has touched a high and a low of 5,390.05 and 5,351.15 respectively. There were 37 stocks advancing against 13 declining ones on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Siemens up by 3.61%, JP Associates up by 3.15%, Ambuja Cement up by 3.10%, SBI up by 2.47% and ACC up by 2.40%.

Tata Power down by 3.15%, Dr Reddy down by 1.66%, NTPC down by 1.02%, GAIL down by 0.88% and Reliance down by 0.75% were the only losers on the index.

Asian equity indices were trading on a mix note; Shanghai Composite was up by 0.17%, Nikkei 225 gained 1.01% and Straits Times was up by 1.16%. On the flip side, Hang Seng lost 0.76 points, Jakarta Composite dropped 0.27%, Seoul Composite descended by 0.19% and Taiwan Weighted shed 0.69%.