Benchmarks come off day’s high; Sensex hold 27,000 mark

Benchmark equity indices have came off day’s high but continue to trade in fine-fettle in afternoon deals. Sentiments remained up-beat on the back of flurry of buying by investors amid positive global cues. Global markets are trading with traction after Federal Reserve meeting minutes raised expectations the US central bank will not hike rates any time soon. European counters too have made a firm start, with CAC, DAX and FTSE all trading in green with a gain of around a percent in early deals. Asian markets were trading mostly in green at this point of time, heading for best week since 1998, as investors piled back into riskier assets.

Back home, there was broad based buying witnessed in the markets and apart from the blue chips, the broader markets too participated strongly in the rally. Some support came with Central Board of Excise and Customs statement that GST can be implemented anytime during a year and not only the beginning of a financial year. GST, once rolled out, will subsume various levies like excise, service tax, sales tax, octroi, etc. Appreciation in Indian rupee too supported the sentiments. The rupee strengthened by 23 paise to 64.82 against the dollar in noon deals on fresh selling of the US currency by exporters and banks amid firm domestic equity markets.

Meanwhile, while none of the sectoral indices were trading in the red, metal and consumer durables witnessed the maximum gain in trade, capital goods, banking, software, technology and FMCG too were trading significantly higher. The market breadth on the BSE was positive; there were 1,457 shares on the gaining side against 1,025 shares on the losing side while 118 shares remain unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 27015.93, up by 170.12 points or 0.63% after trading in a range of 26973.58 and 27200.44. There were 22 stocks advancing against 8 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 gained 0.30%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Metal up by 1.30%, Consumer Durables up by 0.95%, Capital Goods up by 0.85%, Bankex up by 0.79% and IT up by 0.47%, while there were no losers .

The top gainers on the Sensex were Vedanta up by 10.50%, Tata Steel up by 3.18%, Hindalco up by 2.98%, ICICI Bank up by 2.59% and ONGC up by 2.04%. On the flip side, Coal India down by 1.79%, Sun Pharma down by 1.13%, Maruti Suzuki down by 0.78%, TCS down by 0.56% and Wipro down by 0.39% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, keen to put in place a system to prevent international tax evasion and avoidance, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, in the Commonwealth finance ministers’ meeting has reiterated the need for global implementation on a fully reciprocal automatic exchange of tax Information under Common Reporting Standards.

Jaitley welcoming the final guidelines on Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) issued by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which has developed the common reporting standards, noted that India has been the beneficiary of these two systems by getting vital information on tax evasion

In an effort to bring transparency in international taxation norms for companies, recently the Paris-based OECD unveiled measures including country-by-country reporting, a framework to end treaty shopping and curbing harmful tax practices through automatic exchange of information. The deal will not only allow the countries to extract bank details for future, but upon request they could also avail account balance information of the past five to six years. India too signed the Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters under the Common Reporting Standard multilateral agreement to automatically exchange financial information in June this year.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 8174.95, up by 45.60 points or 0.56% after trading in a range of 8167.55 and 8232.20. There were 34 stocks advancing against 16 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Vedanta up by 10.44%, Tata Steel up by 3.14%, ICICI Bank up by 2.59%, Hindalco up by 2.55% and ONGC up by 2.21%. On the flip side, Asian Paints down by 2.08%, Coal India down by 1.79%, Sun Pharma down by 1.22%, Bank Of Baroda down by 1.16% and BPCL down by 1.04% were the top losers.

Asian markets are trading mostly in green; KOSPI Index increased 13.69 points or 0.68% to 2,019.53, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI gained 19.58 points or 1.16% to 1,711.78, Shanghai Composite surged 42.95 points or 1.37% to 3,186.31, Straits Times strengthened 51.02 points or 1.73% to 2,998.05, Jakarta Composite soared 113.53 points or 2.53% to 4,604.96, Hang Seng added 234.53 points or 1.05% to 22,589.44 and Nikkei 225 was up by 297.5 points or 1.64% to 18,438.67. On the flip side, Taiwan Weighted was down by 49.27 points or 0.58% to 8,445.96.

European markets were trading in green; Germany’s DAX gained 0.98%, France’s CAC rose 1.00% and UK’s FTSE was up by 0.77%.