Indian bourses continue to trade in negative terrain

Indian bourses continued their trade in negative terrain in the early afternoon session with frontline gauges trading below their crucial 27,000 (Sensex) and 8,500 (Nifty) levels. Sentiments remained dampened on report that Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that 500 and 1,000 rupee bank notes would be withdrawn from circulation at midnight to crack down on rampant corruption and counterfeit currency. Besides, an early trend suggesting Republican Donald Trump’s lead in US presidential election and depreciation in Indian rupee against the dollar too weighed down sentiments. Indian rupee was trading lower by 12 paise at 66.74 against the dollar at this point of time on sustained foreign fund outflows amid increased demand for the US currency from importers. Traders failed to get any sense of relief with the report that a new and simpler portal for the incoming Goods and Services Tax regime went live on Tuesday that will enable easy filing of returns and tax payments through credit/debit cards and other modes.

On the global front, Asian markets were trading in red as Donald Trump looked on course to win the White House, in a stunning upset with major implications for the world economy. Back home, in scrip specific development, Oriental Bank of Commerce was trading lower as the Bank reported 49.13% fall in its net profit at Rs 153.27 crore for the quarter ended September 30, 2016, as compared to Rs 301.31 crore for the same quarter in the previous year.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 26697.08, down by 894.06 points or 3.24% after trading in a range of 25902.45 and 27026.28. All the 30 stocks on the Sensex were trading lower.

The broader indices were trading in red; the BSE Mid cap index was down by 4.93%, while Small cap index was down by 5.91%.

The top losing sectoral indices on the BSE were Realty down by 13.87%, Consumer Durables down by 6.76%, Metal down by 4.68%, Auto down by 4.33% and IT down by 4.27%, while there were no gainers on the BSE sectoral front.

The top losers on the Sensex were Adani Ports &Special down by 7.99%, Hero MotoCorp down by 6.14%, ICICI Bank down by 5.58%, TCS down by 5.24% and Maruti Suzuki down by 5.09%.

Meanwhile, another milestone has been achieved towards implementation of Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime from April 2017, as the government’s new and simpler GST portal gone live on November 8, for migrating tax payers. This will enable easy filing of returns and tax payments through credit/debit cards and other modes.

Goods and Services Tax Network (GSTN) Chairman Navin Kumar said that as much as 60 percent of the software required to run GST is ready and balanced 40 percent work is on process of completion. He said that about 80 lakh tax payers will be migrated from the existing system to GST regime. GSTN is not only building a network that will integrate the assesses paying service tax, excise and other local levies, but also it will help in building the IT backbone for online registration, refund, return filing and tax payment.

On the new portal, businessmen and traders who currently have to file separate returns for array of indirect taxes like excise duty, service tax and VAT, will file a single monthly return and pay tax online through various payment cards, including credit and debit. The GSTN is building four data centers spread across Delhi and Bengaluru to ensure that the data is safe, secure and to ensure data recovery, whenever required. A provisional identification number, called GSTIN for assesses who have moved to the new portal is being generated. New registrations under GST will start from April 2017.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 8250.35, down by 293.20 points or 3.43% after trading in a range of 8002.25 and 8351.15. All the 51 stocks are declining on the index.

The top losers on Nifty were Adani Ports &Special down by 7.61%, BHEL down by 6.84%, Ambuja Cement down by 6.60%, Hero MotoCorp down by 6.48% and Ultratech Cement down by 6.41%, while there were no gainers on the index.

All the Asian markets were trading in red; Nikkei 225 decreased 919.84 points or 5.36% to 16,251.54, Hang Seng decreased 725.04 points or 3.16% to 22,184.43, Taiwan Weighted decreased 274.23 points or 2.98% to 8,943.20, Jakarta Composite decreased 118.97 points or 2.17% to 5,351.72, KOSPI Index decreased 45 points or 2.25% to 1,958.38, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI decreased 22.99 points or 1.38% to 1,640.83 and Shanghai Composite decreased 17.53 points or 0.56% to 3,130.36.