Benchmarks trades in fine fettle in early deals; Nifty regains 9,100 mark

Extending previous session’s northward journey, Indian equity benchmarks have made a positive start and are trading in fine fettle in early deals on Friday, recapturing their crucial 9,100 (Nifty) and 29,400 (Sensex) levels. Sentiments remained up-beat with Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s statement that the government is keen to roll out the GST on July 1 and other aspects like bringing petroleum and land under its ambit will be considered after the first year of implementation of the new system of indirect tax collection. The GST Bill will be tabled in the Lok Sabha later in the day. Traders shrugged off report that the current account deficit (CAD) widened to $ 7.9 billion or 1.4 percent of GDP in the October-December quarter on account of higher trade deficit. It is, however, equal to 1.4 percent of GDP recorded in the same quarter of last fiscal.

On the global front, Asian markets were trading mostly in red at this point of time, as cautiousness persists on speculation President Donald Trump may struggle with other policies. The US markets made a flat closing with a negative bias in the last session and extended the lackluster performance seen in the previous session, amid continued uncertainty about the fate of the House Republican plan to repeal and replace Obamacare.

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. The market breadth remained in favour of advances, as there were 1,340 shares on the gaining side against 568 shares on the losing side while 108 shares remain unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 29485.07, up by 152.91 points or 0.52% after trading in a range of 29350.17 and 29486.84. There were 21 stocks advancing against 9 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index gained 0.37%, while Small cap index was up by 0.71%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Bankex up by 1.15%, Consumer Durables up by 1.01%, Telecom up by 0.93%, PSU up by 0.75% and Realty was up by 0.73%, while Oil & Gas down by 0.08% and IT was down by 0.06% were the only losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were ICICI Bank up by 2.28%, SBI up by 1.92%, ITC up by 1.37%, Bharti Airtel up by 1.26% and Axis Bank was up by 1.00%. On the flip side, Tata Motors down by 0.46%, ONGC down by 0.36%, NTPC down by 0.21%, TCS down by 0.19% and Hero MotoCorp was down by 0.13% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, the Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has said that the implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) from July 1, 2017 will result in eliminating barriers between the States and make exports more competitive. She added that GST gives a feeling that market in India is one now and there are no barriers between regions or provinces.

Sitharaman further said that even within the country, the value chains which will get integrated, will have a simpler and straightforward flow of goods and, therefore, it should make exports more competitive rather than expensive. Recently, the Union Cabinet approved four GST legislations - the Central GST Bill, Integrated GST Bill, Union Territory GST Bill, and the Compensation Bill which had earlier been approved by the GST Council over 12 meetings spanning about six months. The Bills now need to be passed by the Parliament, while the State GST Bill needs to be passed by the legislative Assemblies of each State.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley too had said the new indirect tax regime will ensure seamless transfer of goods and services, create one of the world's biggest single markets, while stronger information technology backbone will make evasion difficult.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 9127.00, up by 40.70 points or 0.45% after trading in a range of 9089.40 and 9127.85. There were 33 stocks advancing against 18 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Bank of Baroda up by 3.02%, ICICI Bank up by 2.34%, SBI up by 1.99%, ITC up by 1.55% and Bharti Airtel was up by 1.14%. On the flip side, BPCL down by 1.18%, Tech Mahindra down by 0.89%, Tata Motors down by 0.68%, ONGC down by 0.54% and Grasim Industries was down by 0.54% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in red; Taiwan Weighted decreased 25.54 points or 0.26% to 9,905.20, Hang Seng slipped 19.07 points or 0.08% to 24,308.63, KOSPI Index shed 6.43 points or 0.3% to 2,166.29 and Shanghai Composite was down by 2.33 points or 0.07% to 3,246.22.

On the flip side, Jakarta Composite rose 0.08 points to 5,563.84, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI increased 0.47 points or 0.03% to 1,747.47 and Nikkei 225 was up by 150.3 points or 0.79% to 19,235.61.