Sensex scales record high; surpasses 30,000 mark in early deals

Indian equity benchmarks have made a positive start and are trading in fine fettle in early deals on Wednesday, with frontline gauges surpassing its crucial 30,000 (Sensex) and 9,300 (Nifty) levels. Sentiments remained upbeat with report that the outperformance of the domestic stock market has pushed India’s contribution to the global market capitalisation to a six-year high. Traders also reacted positively to NITI Aayog member Bibek Debroy’s statement who made a strong case for removal of exemptions on personal income tax and bringing agriculture under the tax net with a view to increasing the resources of state.

Global cues too supported sentiments with Asian markets rallying at this point of time, as corporate results and hopes of US tax reform boosted optimism for global growth. Japanese market was leading the pack as the yen weakened further. The US markets extended their upmove and ended higher in last session, the tech-heavy Nasdaq climbed to a new record closing high on getting some upbeat earnings numbers and also as the new home sales saw a substantial increase in the month of March.

Back home, overall optimism on March- quarter corporate earnings also contributed to the gains. Rupee also gained past 64 per dollar for the first time since April 2015. 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 1,370 shares on the gaining side against 773 shares on the losing side while 89 shares remain unchanged.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 30073.38, up by 130.14 points or 0.43% after trading in a range of 30004.28 and 30089.74. There were 18 stocks advancing against 11 stocks declining on the index, while one stock remained unchanged.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index gained 0.32%, while Small cap index was up by 0.65%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Metal up by 1.50%, Basic Materials up by 0.95%, FMCG up by 0.78%, Bankex up by 0.72% and Consumer Disc was up by 0.47%, while Energy down by 0.27%, Oil & Gas down by 0.13%, Realty down by 0.12%, IT down by 0.12% and TECK down by 0.10% were the losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Wipro up by 2.23%, Tata Steel up by 1.66%, GAIL India up by 1.48%, HDFC up by 1.41% and ITC up by 1.35%. On the flip side, Cipla down by 0.99%, Hero MotoCorp down by 0.77%, Infosys down by 0.74%, Bajaj Auto down by 0.62% and Power Grid down by 0.46% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, allaying fears that GST implementation will lead to a spurt in prices, the Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia has said that prices of goods and services will not see any increase due to higher incidence of tax, instead of that prices are likely to come down under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime. He added that almost 60 percent of the income of the Centre and states comes from items that attract 14 percent value added tax and 12.5 percent excise duty and there will be a likely decrease in the tax on each of these items under GST.

Adhia further said that though most services will be taxed at 18 percent under the GST regime, as against the current 15 percent service tax, a majority of these will get input tax credit on purchases and the overall tax incidence will remain the same. He also said that there is a possibility that there will be more than one rate for service tax. It is not necessary all services will attract 18 percent tax but abatement will be kept in mind. He added that for a few services, the rate will be decided keeping in mind abatement (relief) that it attracts. For such services, rate will be less that 18 percent.

The Revenue Secretary has said that the government will try to finalize the rates of tax for each item at the earliest to roll out GST from July 1. He also said that the government will soon issue the rules concerning the provision of GST Compliance Rating for an assessee under the law. Meanwhile, the GST Network (GSTN) system will furnish the taxpayer track record regarding the compliance level, especially about the track record related to timely uploading of supply invoices giving details about the auto reversals that have happened for invoices issued by a supplier. The Secretary added if a taxpayer tries to evade tax, the GSTN software will be able to detect that and downgrade the compliance rating.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 9345.20, up by 38.60 points or 0.41% after trading in a range of 9301.35 and 9347.65. There were 33 stocks advancing against 18 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Hindalco up by 2.84%, Wipro up by 2.08%, GAIL India up by 1.57%, HDFC up by 1.48% and Tata Steel up by 1.41%. On the flip side, Bharti Infratel down by 1.55%, Cipla down by 1.04%, BPCL down by 0.96%, Tech Mahindra down by 0.72% and Hero MotoCorp down by 0.67% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading in green; Taiwan Weighted rose 0.99 points or 0.01% to 9,842.70, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI gained 2.9 points or 0.16% to 1,768.70, KOSPI Index increased 8.99 points or 0.41% to 2,205.84, Jakarta Composite jumped 9.38 points or 0.17% to 5,690.18, Shanghai Composite added 11.14 points or 0.36% to 3,145.71, Nikkei 225 surged 138.81 points or 0.73% to 19,218.14 and Hang Seng was up by 142.91 points or 0.58% to 24,598.85.