Markets remain in green in a tight range of trade

Markets though continue to trade in green in the early noon session but have started showing some signs of choppiness, restricting the benchmarks to scale high, keeping them in a tight range. Asian markets too were trading mixed with some of the indices giving up their early gains. Traders were encouraged by some positive news from the monsoon front with a forecast of a timely monsoon and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s statement that making taxation more reasonable and improving ease of doing business will be among his top priorities going ahead. Also, Finance Minister has lent his voice to a growing demand of interest rate cut by the Reserve Bank of India. Back on street, the broader indices were outperforming the benchmarks, while on the sectoral front oil & gas, healthcare and FMCG were taking the markets higher, on the other hand auto and realty were witnessing some profit taking. The stocks of oil marketing companies were in jubilant mood with a second consecutive hike in petrol and diesel prices last week. HPCL was up by 3.6%, BPCL gained 2.5% and IOC was trading higher by 1.5% on the BSE.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 27415.21, up by 91.21 points or 0.33% after trading in a range of 27370.28 and 27517.31. There were 19 stocks advancing against 11 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices trading in green were slightly outperforming the benchmarks; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.45%, while Small cap index gained 0.66%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Oil & Gas up by 1.61%, INFRA up by 0.84%, Consumer Durables up by 0.71%, Metal up by 0.66%, FMCG up by 0.64%, while Auto down by 0.37%, Realty down by 0.33% were the losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Dr. Reddys Lab up by 2.59%, Hindalco up by 2.55%, GAIL India up by 1.95%, ONGC up by 1.38% and Vedanta up by 1.33%. On the flip side, Tata Motors down by 1.76%, Cipla down by 0.66%, Mahindra & Mahindra down by 0.50%, Hero MotoCorp down by 0.49% and Hindustan Unilever down by 0.44% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, the government has contained the fiscal deficit at 4 per cent of GDP for 2014-15 at Rs 5,01,880 crore, bettering its own financial targets it had inherited (4.1 per cent) in the interim Budget prepared by his predecessor P Chidambaram. Revenue deficit at the end of 2014-15 stood at Rs 3,58,306 crore which is 99 percent of the projected figure in the RE 2014-15 and is 2.8 percent of the GDP as against the RE of 2.9 percent.

Fiscal deficit, the gap between the government's expenditure and revenue, remained lower than the downwardly revised estimate of 4.1 per cent provided by the Modi government's first full Budget announced in February. To meet the steep ask of containing the fiscal deficit Jaitley followed the precedent set by his predecessor for 2013-14 and had slashed the allocation for plan expenditure by Rs 1,07,066 crore to Rs 4,67,934 crore for 2014-15 from Rs 5,75,000 crore in the revised estimate towards the fag end of the year.

As per the ministry, Plan Expenditure at the end of 2014-15 stood at Rs 4,35,621 crore while Non-Plan Expenditure during the same year has been Rs 11,91,140 crore (99.8 percent of RE). The gross tax collection registered a growth of 9 percent in 2014-15 and stood at Rs 12,45,037 crore. The Non Tax Revenue stood at Rs 1,96,959 crore (90 percent of Revised Estimate).

Although, the provisional accounts for the year ended 31st March, 2015, have been complied on the basis of March data and anticipated adjustments received from the different ministries. These are the provisional figures and may undergo certain changes during the final compilation of accounts after audit. Figures compiled by the Controller General of Accounts had put the fiscal deficit during April-December period at Rs 5.32 lakh crore mainly because of subdued tax realisation in a slowing economy. As per the fiscal consolidation road map outlined in the Budget 2015-16, fiscal deficit is to be brought down to 3.9 percent of GDP in the current fiscal, then to 3.5 percent in 2016-17 and further to 3 percent by 2017-18.The 3 percent target would now be reached a year later than planned.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 8295.55, up by 33.20 points or 0.40% after trading in a range of 8271.95 and 8322.35. There were 31 stocks advancing against 19 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Hindalco up by 2.77%, Lupin up by 2.77%, Cairn India up by 2.75%, Dr. Reddys Lab up by 2.58% and Ultratech Cement up by 2.41%. On the flip side, Tata Motors down by 1.81%, Tech Mahindra down by 1.66%, Mahindra & Mahindra down by 0.99%, Bank Of Baroda down by 0.87% and Cipla down by 0.60% were the top losers.

The Asian markets have mostly turned negative, though KOSPI Index was up by 7.22 points or 0.34% to 2,113.72, Taiwan Weighted gained 26.62 points or 0.28% to 9,606.10 and Nikkei 225 was higher by 157.35 points or 0.8% to 19,890.27.

On the other hand, Hang Seng slumped by 312.26 points or 1.12% to 27,510.02, Straits Times declined by 8.41 points or 0.24% to 3,454.69, Shanghai Composite was lower by 2.3 points or 0.05% to 4,306.40, Jakarta Composite lost 1.32 points or 0.03% to 5,225.78 and FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI was tad down by 0.08 points to 1,811.84.