Markets continue to trade firm in early noon session

Indian equity benchmarks continued to trade firm in early noon session, on the back of value buying in frontline blue-chip counters amid positive global cues. Besides, covering of short positions by speculators helped market sentiment to improve. Further, some support came in as Finance Minister Arun Jaitley expressed the hope of passage of the Constitutional Amendment Bill for the Goods and Services Tax and the Insolvency Code in the forthcoming Budget Session of Parliament. Appreciation in the Indian ruppe too supported the sentiment. Rupee recovered by 27 paise to 67.80 against the dollar in early trade, snapping the three-day falling streak on fresh selling of the US currency by banks and exporters.

On the global front, Asian markets were trading mostly in green, after a weak US services data dampened hopes of a further rate hike by the Federal Reserve in the near future which in turn hammered the dollar and spurred a rise in the oil prices. Back home, both the Sensex and Nifty were trading above their crucial 24,350 and 7,400 levels, respectively. In scrip specific development, shares of ABB were trading higher over 12% after the company reported net profit of Rs 129 crore for the fourth quarter ended December 31, 2015 on back of strong operational performance and lower interest cost.

The market breadth was positive as 1335 stocks were advancing while 935  were declining.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 24352.09, up by 128.77 points or 0.53% after trading in a range of 24279.21 and 24449.42. 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 0.28%, while Small cap index up by 0.26%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Capital Goods up by 2.16%, Consumer Durables up by 1.44%, Metal up by 1.35%, Auto up by 0.92% and IT up by 0.90%, while there were no losers on the sectoral index.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Larsen & Toubro up by 2.76%, ONGC up by 2.63%, Asian Paints up by 2.21%, Adani Ports &Special up by 2.17% and Tata Motors up by 1.83%. On the flip side, Lupin down by 3.60%, NTPC down by 3.07%, Cipla down by 2.73%, Sun Pharma down by 1.30% and Tata Steel down by 1.14% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, giving some relief to Special Economic Zones (SEZs), the Finance Ministry has asserted that the SEZ Unit or the Developer shall be entitled to refund Swachh Bharat cess paid on the specified services on which ab-initio exemption is admissible but not claimed. This cess was imposed by the government from November last year to fund its cleanliness drive.

The Ministry has also given the formula for calculating refund due to SEZ units and developers. The concessions provided to SEZs are expected to generate some interest of investors in them. Ministry highlighted that the investors have been losing interest in these zones for various reasons including global economic slowdown, imposition of minimum alternate tax (MAT) and dividend distribution tax (DDT).  Besides, many business houses have surrendered SEZs while the government on its part has given more time to some developers to execute the projects.

Earlier in November, the government has decided to impose a 0.5 percent cess on all taxable services which are presently liable to service tax, to fund the Swachh Bharat programme, in a bid to provide a boost to the clean India initiative. This tax came into effect from November 15, 2015. With the imposition of the cess, service tax rate has gone up from 14 per cent to 14.5 per cent.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 7410.10, up by 48.30 points or 0.66% after trading in a range of 7382.55 and 7431.90. There were 38 stocks advancing against 12 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Cairn India up by 6.64%, Vedanta up by 6.00%, Tata Power up by 4.03%, Hindalco up by 3.98% and Bank of Baroda up by 2.86%. On the flip side, Lupin down by 3.58%, NTPC down by 2.99%, Cipla down by 2.94%, GAIL India down by 1.39% and Tech Mahindra down by 1.23% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in green, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI increased 21.65 points or 1.33% to 1,654.95, KOSPI Index increased 23.77 points or 1.26% to 1,914.44, Shanghai Composite increased 42.74 points or 1.56% to 2,781.99, Jakarta Composite increased 63.58 points or 1.38% to 4,659.69 and Hang Seng increased 256.01 points or 1.35% to 19,247.60, while Nikkei 225 decreased 122.56 points or 0.71% to 17,068.69.