Markets continue to trade marginally in green in early noon session

Indian equity benchmarks continued to trade marginally in green in a narrow range in early noon session, as participants keenly wait for the Railway Budget 2016 due to be announced. Investors got some encouragement with the Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s statement that India needs competitive tax rates to become an attractive manufacturing hub that will help it create jobs and boost economic growth. Meanwhile, caution prevailed in the market as today is the expiry of the February derivative F&O series. On the global front, Asian markets were trading mostly in green, following Wall Street's reversal of sharp intraday losses overnight on the back of higher oil prices. Back home, in scrip specific development, shares of Lupin were trading higher after the company is planning to set up a new plant in Japan and invest Rs 100 crore in a manufacturing facility in India to cater to the Japanese market.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 23110.97, up by 22.04 points or 0.10% after trading in a range of 23029.89 and 23142.96. There were 14 stocks advancing against 16 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in red; the BSE Mid cap index was down by 0.33%, while Small cap index down by 0.02%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Metal up by 1.13%, FMCG up by 0.31%, Consumer Durables up by 0.28%, PSU up by 0.18% and Capital Goods up by 0.01%, while IT down by 0.81%, TECK down by 0.72%, Power down by 0.69%, Realty down by 0.54% and Oil & Gas down by 0.45% were the losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Coal India up by 2.28%, Sun Pharma Inds. up by 2.05%, ONGC up by 1.50%, HDFC up by 1.44% and Lupin up by 1.18%. On the flip side, Wipro down by 1.62%, GAIL India down by 1.51%, Adani Ports &Special down by 1.45%, TCS down by 0.93% and Bajaj Auto down by 0.89% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, in order to keep manufacturing sector competitive and boost the economic growth, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley ahead of the Union Budget 2016-17 has said that India needs to keep tax rates reasonable to become an attractive manufacturing hub and has to occasionally vary those rates. His comments come at a time when the manufacturing sector is showing incipient signs of a turnaround.

Jaitley at the Investiture Ceremony 2016 and Annual Central Excise Custom Day Function said that “Manufacturing itself is not only extremely important activity, but it is one activity with a spiral effect on the economy which also creates the largest volumes of job.”

He said that as the economies grow, not only the width of revenue grows but the expectation of people for greater level of developments, evolution of society as welfare state also grows. Manufacturing in any growing economy has a very vital role.

Further, the Minister is also looking at reducing the corporate tax rate to 25 per cent from the current 30 per cent over the next four years while winding up exemptions to India Inc.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 7023.65, up by 4.95 points or 0.07% after trading in a range of 6997.80 and 7034.20. There were 23 stocks advancing against 26 stocks declining on the index while 1 stock remained unchanged.

The top gainers on Nifty were Coal India up by 2.52%, Sun Pharma up by 2.08%, Tata Power up by 1.90%, Hindalco up by 1.88% and ONGC up by 1.74%. On the flip side, Power Grid down by 4.40%, Tech Mahindra down by 2.00%, Wipro down by 1.65%, BPCL down by 1.56% and ACC down by 1.51% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in green; Jakarta Composite increased 1.05 points or 0.02% to 4,658.78, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI increased 1.07 points or 0.06% to 1,665.24, KOSPI Index increased 6.04 points or 0.32% to 1,918.57, Taiwan Weighted increased 83 points or 1% to 8,365.86 and Nikkei 225 increased 252.72 points or 1.59% to 16,168.51, while Hang Seng decreased 214.15 points or 1.12% to 18,978.30 and Shanghai Composite decreased 108.04 points or 3.69% to 2,820.86