Benchmarks trade in fine fettle in early deals

Indian equity benchmarks are trading in fine fettle in early deals on Tuesday as investors opted to buy beaten down but fundamentally strong stocks after three days of continuous drubbing. Some support came in with report that the foreign direct investment (FDI) in India jumped about 63 percent to $3.28 billion in February, 2015, compared to FDI of $ 2.01 billion in same period last year. Meanwhile, GST Empowered Committee Chairman K M Mani has said that the new indirect tax regime will boost India’s economy and the panel of state finance ministers needs to build a consensus among all states on the contentious matters before April 1, 2016.

On the global front, the US markets ended in red in last session, coming off the record highs scaled on Friday. Traders turned cautious ahead of the FOMC meet, while there was profit taking offsetting the strong gains posted last week. Asian markets were trading mostly in the red at this point of time and some of them turned lower after starting in green, though the Japanese market was trading with good gains on back of weaker yen.

Back home, on the sectoral front, auto, banking and realty witnessed the maximum gain in trade, while software, technology and fast moving consumer goods remained the few losers on the BSE sectoral space. The broader indices too were trading in-line with benchmarks, while the market breadth on the BSE was negative; there were 1121 shares on the gaining side against 700 shares on the losing side while 54 shares remain unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 27336.45, up by 159.46 points or 0.59% after trading in a range of 27116.81 and 27356.20. There were 20 stocks advancing against 10 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.81%, while Small cap index gained 0.78%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Auto up by 1.73%, Bankex up by 1.50%, Realty up by 1.39%, Oil & Gas up by 1.15% and Infrastructure up by 0.89% while, IT down by 0.64%, TECK down by 0.43% and FMCG down by 0.25% were the losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were ICICI Bank up by 6.15%, Tata Motors up by 2.47%, Maruti Suzuki up by 2.46%, Axis Bank up by 1.88% and BHEL up by 1.59%. On the flip side, TCS down by 1.48%, HDFC Bank down by 0.97%, HDFC down by 0.80%, ITC down by 0.76% and Hindustan Unilever down by 0.68% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, amid stiff resistance by several opposition parties, the long-pending Bill on Goods and Services Tax (GST), which was moved in the Lok Sabha on Friday will be taken up for consideration  and passage on Monday. The Constitution (122nd Amendment) Bill, 2014, was moved on Friday by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who asserted this a “win-win” measure for both the Centre and the states in an effort to allay the apprehensions of some state governments who worried about revenue loss if this piece of legislation was passed.

However, the fate of this bill remains to be hanging given that this Constitution amendment bill requires two-thirds support in both the Houses and with Congress looking keen to create hurdles given that BJP blocked the same bill when it was in power, Modi led government will need deft political management, especially in Opposition-dominated Rajya Sabha, to ensure the bill's passage.

Notably, Congress Party along with those of the Left, TMC and NCP staged a walk out after their plea for referring the Constitution Amendment Bill to the Standing Committee was not accepted. However, government friendly parties AIADMK and BJD also opposed its consideration but did not walk out.

The Opposition members blamed that the government was “bull-dozing” and quietly wanted to pass the bill, however the parties demanded more time to study the “new” legislation.

The crucial GST, which is expected to add 1-2% to the GDP by creating a national market for goods and removing distortions caused by multiple indirect taxes levied by the Centre, states and local bodies, was earlier supposed to be rolled out from April 1, 2010 but has been delayed due to resistance on the part of many states that feared a loss of revenue.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 8249.35, up by 35.55 points or 0.43% after trading in a range of 8185.15 and 8262.40. There were 33 stocks advancing against 16 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were ICICI Bank up by 5.95%, BPCL up by 2.55%, BHEL up by 2.41%, Maruti Suzuki up by 2.30% and Tata Motors up by 2.29%. On the flip side, HCL Tech down by 1.51%, TCS down by 1.46%, ITC down by 0.97%, HDFC Bank down by 0.92% and Ambuja Cement down by 0.89% were the top losers.

Most of the Asian equity indices were trading in the red; Jakarta Composite dropped 59.79 points or 1.14% to 5,185.66, Hang Seng slipped 26.28 points or 0.09% to 28,407.31, Taiwan Weighted decreased 20.3 points or 0.2% to 9,952.82, Straits Times declined 18.84 points or 0.54% to 3,497.01, Shanghai Composite shed 14.64 points or 0.32% to 4,512.76, KOSPI Index dipped 7.72 points or 0.36% to 2,149.82 and FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI was down by 5.18 points or 0.28% to 1,854.40. On the flip side, Nikkei 225 was up by 99.9 points or 0.5% to 20,083.22.