Benchmarks trade in fine fettle in early deals; Sensex surpass 29,600 mark

Indian equity benchmarks have made a positive start and are trading in fine fettle in early deals on Thursday, with frontline gauges surpassing 29,600 (Sensex) and 9,150 (Nifty) levels. Sentiments remained up-beat on report that the Lok Sabha passed all four GST Bills to make India's new tax regime effective from July 1. The four GST Bills were passed after an eight-hour marathon debate in the Lower House. The unified tax regime is expected to boost economic growth by about 0.5 percentage points in its first year of implementation. However, markets may see volatility towards the series expiry with traders rolling over their positions to the next series.

On the global front, all the Asian markets were trading in red at this point of time; the Japanese market too was lower despite the yen weakening and crude holding on to last day’s surge. The US markets once again showed a lackluster trade and made a mixed closing in last session. 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 1,482 shares on the gaining side against 460 shares on the losing side while 160 shares remain unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 29642.09, up by 110.66 points or 0.37% after trading in a range of 29521.65 and 29645.88. There were 25 stocks advancing against 5 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index gained 0.56%, while Small cap index was up by 0.89%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Realty up by 1.25%, Consumer Durables up by 1.15%, Capital Goods up by 0.78%, Industrials up by 0.74% and Consumer Discretionary Goods & Services was up by 0.65%, while Telecom down by 0.20% was the lone losing index on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Adani Ports up by 2.20%, SBI up by 1.44%, Hero MotoCorp up by 1.30%, Maruti Suzuki up by 0.91% and Reliance Industries was up by 0.82%. On the flip side, Axis Bank down by 0.62%, Bharti Airtel down by 0.33%, Tata Motors down by 0.33%, Lupin down by 0.16% and Coal India was down by 0.12% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, dismissing the fears of price rise of goods and commodities after the roll out of the Goods and Services Tax (GST), Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has said that the tax rates will be kept at the current level and will not affect inflation. He also said that the purpose of GST Council is to ensure that all the things related to the tax structure are with consent and this is the first time such arrangements have been made on the basis of the principle of shared ownership of both the Central and State Governments.

This historic tax reform is now a step closer to meet its July 1 target of rollout, with the Lok Sabha approving four supplementary legislations. The GST bill would bring the country under single tax net for the first time. The legislations were passed after negation of a host of amendments moved by the opposition parties. GST will subsume a host of indirect taxes levied by the Centre and states, including excise duty, VAT, service tax, entry, luxury and entertainment levies. Finance Minister had presented four under the GST for consideration in parliament.

Jaitley further said that the Central GST or CGST will give powers to the Centre to levy tax after levies of excise, service tax and additional customs duty is subsumed. The Integrated GST or IGST will be a tax to be levied by the Centre on inter-state movement of goods and services. The State GST or SGST law will allow states to levy sales tax after levies like VAT are subsumed. Besides, GST compensation law allows for imposition of cess on certain luxury goods like tobacco, high-end cars and aerated drinks to create a corpus for compensating states for any loss of revenue in the first five years of GST roll out. The fourth law is on Union Territory GST or UTGST for UTs like Chandigarh and Daman and Diu which do not have assemblies. Jaitley added that all decisions on GST would be taken by the GST Council, reflecting the federal structure.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 9166.05, up by 22.25 points or 0.24% after trading in a range of 9136.35 and 9169.65. There were 31 stocks advancing against 17 stocks declining on the index, while 3 stocks remained unchanged.

The top gainers on Nifty were Adani Ports up by 1.64%, SBI up by 1.27%, Indusind Bank up by 1.05%, Hero MotoCorp up by 1.03% and Maruti Suzuki was up by 0.92%. On the flip side, Bharti Infratel down by 1.62%, Axis Bank down by 0.80%, Ambuja Cement down by 0.56%, HCL Tech down by 0.48% and Wipro was down by 0.44% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading in red; Hang Seng decreased 114.29 points or 0.47% to 24,277.76, Nikkei 225 shed 65.01 points or 0.34% to 19,152.47, Shanghai Composite declined 36.32 points or 1.12% to 3,205.00, Jakarta Composite dropped 32.79 points or 0.59% to 5,559.72, Taiwan Weighted slipped 14.47 points or 0.15% to 9,841.78, KOSPI Index dipped 5.7 points or 0.26% to 2,161.28 and FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI was down by 2.75 points or 0.16% to 1,747.66.