Benchmarks continue firm trade at highest point of the day

Indian equity markets added gains and continued their trade in green hovering near the highest point of the day in the late afternoon session on account of buying in frontline blue chip counters. The gains in the domestic market were seen even as the global trend was muted. The sentiments remained up-beat on reform hopes after the cabinet gave approval to incorporation of changes in the GST bill as suggested by the Rajya Sabha select committee. Traders were seen piling position in Realty, Bankex and Metal stock while selling was witnessed in Power sector stocks. In scrip specific development, ICICI Bank, India’s biggest private sector lender by assets, was trading firm on reporting a 12 percent rise in quarterly profit, beating estimates, and its bad loan ratio fell sequentially.

On the global front, the Asian markets were trading mostly in green, while the European markets were trading mostly on pessimistic note. Back home, the NSE Nifty and BSE Sensex were trading above the psychological 8,500 and 28,100 levels respectively. The market breadth on BSE was positive in the ratio of 1736:994 while 109 scrips remained unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 28113.57, up by 408.22 points or 1.47% after trading in a range of 27814.51 and 28134.11. There were 26 stocks advancing against 4 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 1.32%, while Small cap index up by 1.07%.

The gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Realty up by 3.77%, Bankex up by 2.08%, Metal up by 1.88%, Auto up by 1.78% and PSU up by 1.69% while Power down by 0.26% was the losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were SBI up by 5.96%, ICICI Bank up by 4.78%, Lupin up by 4.10%, Coal India up by 3.61% and Hero MotoCorp up by 3.57%.

On the flip side, BHEL down by 1.83%, NTPC down by 0.29%, HDFC Bank down by 0.12% and Hindustan Unilever down by 0.02% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, Minister of State for Finance Jayant Sinha, has informed the upper house of parliament that the Centre is taking necessary steps to deal with black money, where it will mostly focus on high impact cases with a view to prosecuting offenders at the earliest possible for credible avoidance against tax evasion, the government will be using IT tools to extract the data for the same. He further stated that this step to deal with black money includes putting in place robust legislative and administrative frameworks, systems and processes, where it will mostly focus on capacity building and integrating the information received from different sources.

Sinha said that the government has taken measures to combat black money, by way of policy level initiatives which include enactment of the Black Money (Undisclosed Foreign Income and Assets) and Imposition of Tax Act, 2015 as well as through effective enforcement action on the ground. He also said that the Special Investigation Team (SIT) which is investigating cases of black money stored abroad has already submitted three reports to Supreme Court.

Further, Sinha said that the Centre is renegotiating Double Taxation Avoidance Agreements (DTAAs) and expanding the scope of tax information exchange agreements (TIEAs) with several authorities to facilitate exchange of information. Government has signed multilateral automatic exchange of information (AEOI) in order to share tax data and also has made agreement with US under the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) which will together facilitate India to get information about financial transaction done by Indian persons in other countries.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 8538.95, up by 117.15 points or 1.39% after trading in a range of 8448.00 and 8542.75. There were 42 stocks advancing against 8 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were SBI up by 6.15%, Bank of Baroda up by 4.98%, ICICI Bank up by 4.90%, Lupin up by 4.24% and Hero MotoCorp up by 4.06%.

On the flip side, Kotak Mahindra Bank down by 1.95%, BHEL down by 1.76%, BPCL down by 1.31%, Tata Power down by 1.29% and Power Grid Corporation down by 1.09% were the top losers.

The Asian markets were trading mostly in green; KOSPI Index increased 11.13 points or 0.55% to 2,030.16, Taiwan Weighted increased 13.85 points or 0.16% to 8,665.34, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI increased 18.35 points or 1.08% to 1,718.27, Nikkei 225 increased 62.41 points or 0.3% to 20,585.24, Jakarta Composite increased 70.03 points or 1.49% to 4,782.52 and Hang Seng increased 138.3 points or 0.56% to 24,636.28.

On the other hand, Straits Times decreased 45.87 points or 1.41% to 3,203.65 and Shanghai Composite decreased 42.04 points or 1.13% to 3,663.73.

The European markets were trading mostly in red; Germany’s DAX decreased 16.09 points or 0.14% to 11,241.06, UK’s FTSE 100 decreased 4.95 points or 0.07% to 6,663.92 while France’s CAC increased 6.43 points or 0.13% to 5,052.85.