Indian bourses continue to trade in positive territory

Key benchmark indices continued to trade in positive territory in the afternoon session led by gains in frontline blue chip stocks such as Mahindra & Mahindra, ITC, HDFC and Tata Motors among others. Sentiments remained up-beat with Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia’s assurance that prices will not increase due to higher incidence of tax and instead, are likely to come down under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime. He said that though most services will be taxed at 18% under the GST regime, as against the current 15% service tax, a majority of these will get input tax credit on purchases and the overall tax incidence will remain the same. Some support also came after Finance Minister Arun Jaitley asserted that the government was giving top priority to addressing the issue of bad loans, while acknowledging that the problem of non-performing assets was “adversely impacting” the Indian banking system. Besides, encouraging earnings and positive Asian cues also contributed to the stellar show of the bourses. Meanwhile, the rupee appreciated by 24 paise to trade at nearly 21-month high of 64.03 against the dollar in early trade amid sustained selling of the American currency by exporters and banks. In scrip specific development, NIIT Technologies was up by over five percent on entering into partnership with Siam City Cement Public Company (SCCC) for building its future ready IT infrastructure.

On the global front, Asian markets were trading in green, following the overnight gains on Wall Street amid upbeat corporate earnings results and on optimism U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to unveil a tax plan later in the day. Back home, the BSE Sensex is currently trading at 30107.46, up by 164.22 points or 0.55% after trading in a range of 30004.28 and 30146.54. There were 18 stocks advancing against 12 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.26%, while Small cap index was up by 0.25%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were FMCG up by 1.38%, Metal up by 1.02%, Auto up by 1.01%, Bankex up by 0.73% and Consumer Disc up by 0.69%, while IT down by 0.77%, TECK down by 0.55%, Energy down by 0.52%, Healthcare down by 0.34% and Oil & Gas down by 0.30% were the losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Mahindra & Mahindra up by 2.41%, ITC up by 1.94%, HDFC up by 1.82%, Tata Motors up by 1.72% and GAIL India up by 1.66%. On the flip side, Infosys down by 1.49%, Wipro down by 0.92%, Power Grid down by 0.91%, Cipla down by 0.81% and Reliance Industries down by 0.55% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, the government think-tank, Niti Aayog (the National Institution for Transforming India) has released a draft three year action agenda for public consultation, which suggests a host of reforms with the objective of accelerating economic growth and increasing employment opportunities.

The three-year agenda (2017-18 to 2019-20) has seven parts, divided into 24 chapters, which proposes to check tax evasion & expand tax base, to double the income of farmers by 2022, to bring down land prices to make housing affordable through increased supply of urban land, adoption of consumer-friendly measures such as provision of electricity to all households by 2022, LPG connection to all BPL households, elimination of black carbon by 2022 and extension of the city gas distribution programme to 100 smart cities.

The draft agenda underlined the need for recalibrating the role of the government by limiting its involvement in activities that do not serve a public purpose. The agenda also includes the closure of loss-making CPSEs & strategic disinvestment in 20 state-owned companies, creation of an institutional mechanism to promote competition through comprehensive review, reform of government regulations across all sectors and strengthening of the public procurement system. Besides, it also suggests the cross-subsidy reduction in the power sector to ensure competitive supply of electricity to the industry.

Niti Aayog suggested in its draft three-year action plan that the government should tackle tax evasion, expand the tax base and simplify the tax system through reforms such as consolidating customs duty to a unified rate. Further elaborating it said that there should be no distinction between urban & rural and agricultural income should be taxed at the same threshold as personal income. However, rural agriculture income tax could be an average of three years as it is subject to weather fluctuations.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 9351.30, up by 44.70 points or 0.48% after trading in a range of 9301.35 and 9363.75. There were 28 stocks advancing against 22 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Hindalco up by 2.69%, Mahindra & Mahindra up by 2.29%, HDFC up by 1.99%, ITC up by 1.96% and GAIL India up by 1.93%. On the flip side, Bharti Infratel down by 1.87%, Tech Mahindra down by 1.62%, Infosys down by 1.53%, Power Grid down by 1.15% and Indiabulls Housing down by 1.04% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading in green, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI increased 2.91 points or 0.16% to 1,768.71, Jakarta Composite surged 6.14 points or 0.11% to 5,686.93, Shanghai Composite rose 7.83 points or 0.25% to 3,142.40, KOSPI Index added 10.99 points or 0.5% to 2,207.84, Taiwan Weighted was up by 14.74 points or 0.15% to 9,856.45, Hang Seng jumped 96.29 points or 0.39% to 24,552.23 and Nikkei 225 was up by 210.1 points or 1.1% to 19,289.43.