Benchmarks make positive start on penultimate session of F&O expiry

Indian equity benchmarks have made a positive start on penultimate session of F&O expiry and are trading in fine fettle in early deals with a gain of around quarter a percent. Sentiments remained up-beat with Finance Minister Arun Jaitley terming the GST bill revolutionary and hoping all the political parties would pass the related bills through consensus in the current session of Parliament. Meanwhile, the government will borrow from markets about Rs 3.72 lakh crore in the first half of next fiscal beginning April, which is 64 percent of the borrowing target for full financial year. The Centre would also issue treasury bills worth Rs 26,000 crore in the first half of the fiscal. Some support also came with report that foreign institutional investors bought equities worth Rs 6,415 crore, while domestic institutional investors were net buyers to the tune of Rs 356 crore.

Global cues too remained supportive with Asian markets trading mostly in green at this point of time after Wall Street steadied and the dollar bounced from a four-month-low, as anxiety over Donald Trump's setback on healthcare reform gave way to tentative hopes for the US President's planned stimulus policies. Back home, steel stocks remained on buyers’ radar in the last nine months, steel exports from India increased 77 per cent to 6.62 mt while imports fell by 65 per cent to 6.59 mt, turning India a net exporter.

The market breadth indicating the overall health of the market was strong, with 1,178 shares gaining and 787 shares declining, while a total of 113 shares were unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 29478.82, up by 69.30 points or 0.24% after trading in a range of 29439.42 and 29494.44. There were 19 stocks advancing against 11 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index rose 0.08%, while Small cap index was up by 0.40%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Telecom up by 1.57%, Consumer Durables up by 0.41%, Capital Goods up by 0.40%, Bankex up by 0.39% and Basic Materials was up by 0.37%, while Oil & Gas down by 0.24% and Energy was down by 0.21% were the only losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Asian Paints up by 1.34%, SBI up by 1.03%, Axis Bank up by 1.00%, Bharti Airtel up by 0.85% and ITC was up by 0.68%. On the flip side, Adani Ports &Special down by 0.65%, Wipro down by 0.51%, Tata Motors down by 0.42%, Reliance Industries down by 0.37% and Sun Pharma was down by 0.24% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, the leasing of land, renting of building as well as equated monthly installments (EMIs) paid for purchases of under-construction houses are eligible for tax credit under the proposed Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime. This system will commence from July 1, when the GST is implemented. However, sale of land and buildings will be out of the GST ambit. Purchase of land, payment of stamp duty will continue as before, while electricity is also excluded from the GST scope.

The government is planning to roll out GST from July 1, 2017, it will subsume central excise, service tax and state VAT among other indirect levies on manufactured goods and services. According to the Central GST (CGST) bill any lease, tenancy, easement, licence to occupy land will be considered as supply of service. Also, any lease or letting out of the building, including a commercial, industrial or residential complex for business or commerce, either wholly or partly, is a supply of services as per the CGST bill. The GST bills provide that sale of land and, sale of building except the sale of under construction building will nether be treated as a supply of goods not a supply of services. Thus, GST can't be levied in those supplies.

In the earlier draft of the bills, 'Goods' were defined as every kind of movable property other than money and securities but includes actionable claim. 'Services' were defined as anything other than goods. It was thought that GST may be levied on supply of immovable property such as Land or building apart from levy of stamp duty. But now the situation is clear with the bill introduced in Parliament.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 9121.10, up by 20.30 points or 0.22% after trading in a range of 9109.10 and 9134.05. There were 34 stocks advancing against 17 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Bharti Infratel up by 6.25%, Tata Power up by 1.75%, Asian Paints up by 1.22%, Ambuja Cement up by 1.14% and SBI was up by 1.10%. On the flip side, Adani Ports &Special down by 0.78%, Tech Mahindra down by 0.71%, Wipro down by 0.55%, Grasim Industries down by 0.46% and Tata Motors was down by 0.42% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in green; Nikkei 225 rose 0.17 points to 19,203.04, KOSPI Index gained 0.37 points or 0.02% to 2,163.68, Shanghai Composite increased 4.71 points or 0.14% to 3,257.66, Jakarta Composite added 42.42 points or 0.77% to 5,583.63 and Hang Seng was up by 50.39 points or 0.21% to 24,396.26.

On the flip side, Taiwan Weighted decreased 35.04 points or 0.35% to 9,841.41 and FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI was down by 2.86 points or 0.16% to 1,751.56.