Markets extend gains with a positive start

Indian markets have made a flat but positive start and were trading modestly in green in the first hour of trade, extending their last session gains. Although, the global cues remained mixed but traders were covering shorts ahead of F&O December series expiry later in the week. Also, there were some hopes on GST with Finance Minister Arun Jaitley stating that rolling out the ambitious GST regime is “certainly” doable in 2016 and he is in continuous touch with the Congress party in a bid to persuade them to cooperate. Meanwhile, a slump in international crude prices and the commodity basket was weighing down the upstream oil companies and the whole metal pack. On the other hand the PSU oil marketing companies were in jubilant mood with the decline in crude prices, and as the government decided to limit supply of under-priced fuel to cut subsidies. The infra pack too was moving higher, with the eight-member Vijay Kelkar Committee coming up with host of recommendations, including a review of the model concession agreements, allowing fund raising through zero coupon bonds and setting up of independent sectoral regulators.

In scrip specific movements, L&T was trading in green with its subsidiary L&T Infotech looking to raise over Rs 2,000 crore through initial public offering (IPO) in the Q4FY16. Pharma major Lupin too was trading higher on receiving final approval for its Fyavolv Tablets from the United States Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) to market a generic version of Warner Chilcott’s Femhrt Tablets.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 26100.40, up by 66.27 points or 0.25% after trading in a range of 26065.08 and 26133.78. There were 22 stocks advancing against 8 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices too were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.53%, while Small cap index added 0.30%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Realty up by 0.63%, Power up by 0.57%, Auto up by 0.51%, IT up by 0.33%, TECK up by 0.32% while, Consumer Durables down by 0.26% were the losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were NTPC up by 2.05%, Adani Ports &Special up by 1.47%, Mahindra & Mahindra up by 0.98%, Bharti Airtel up by 0.94% and Bajaj Auto up by 0.77%. On the flip side, ONGC down by 0.85%, Hindustan Unilever down by 0.77%, BHEL down by 0.55%, ICICI Bank down by 0.55% and Axis Bank down by 0.50% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, raising some hopes of the passage of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Bill in the parliament, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has said that rolling out the ambitious GST regime is 'certainly' doable in 2016 and he is in continuous touch with the Congress party in a bid to persuade them to cooperate.

Jaitley further said that in the next session the GST will make headway. “After all, it was a Bill brought by Congress, for political reasons, they have done a volte-face but they should not be doing it indefinitely”. He also said that the Congress did not have 'numbers to obstruct, so it used disruption in order to obstruct and “I think it is a very bad precedent for India's Parliamentary democracy if this is followed in state legislatures and if this is followed by future opposition parties, I think it would be a bad trend to set'.

He emphasized that the passage of GST remains one of his key priority areas for the New Year, along with rationalising the direct taxes and further easing of process for doing business. He added that GST was not like income tax and therefore it was not necessary to bring it in force from the beginning of a new financial year. Earlier the government had targetted to roll out GST from April 1, 2016, Jaitley said 'GST is not an income tax (measure) and it does not have to come on only on first April of every year. It is a transactional tax and so it can come even in the middle of the year'.

Earlier, the Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian too came up with a win-win model to address the issue of including petroleum products in the proposed Goods and Services Tax (GST) list and said that Petrol and other petroleum products would not be brought under the GST regime for some time after its roll out.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 7933.40, up by 8.25 points or 0.10% after trading in a range of 7923.90 and 7942.15. There were 31 stocks advancing against 19 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were NTPC up by 2.29%, Adani Ports &Special up by 1.41%, BPCL up by 1.26%, GAIL India up by 0.79% and Tata Steel up by 0.75%. On the flip side, Hindustan Unilever down by 0.94%, ONGC down by 0.92%, Cairn India down by 0.83%, ICICI Bank down by 0.76% and Axis Bank down by 0.75% were the top losers.

The Asian markets were trading mostly in green, KOSPI Index was up by 1.18 points or 0.06% to 1,965.24, Shanghai Composite gained 6.09 points or 0.17% to 3,539.87, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI was higher by 8.6 points or 0.51% to 1,679.33, Jakarta Composite added 10.91 points or 0.24% to 4,568.26, Nikkei 225 increased by 58.79 points or 0.31% to 18,932.14, Hang Seng gained 69.59 points or 0.32% to 21,989.21.

On the other hand Taiwan Weighted declined by 55.99 points or 0.67% to 8,302.50.