Benchmarks trade marginally in green in morning trade

Indian equity benchmarks made cautious start but managed to keep their head above water in early deals ahead of RBI policy meet outcome on December 6. Traders took some encouragement with Former Chief Economist at World Bank Kaushik Basu’s statement that with oil prices so low, India's economic growth should have been back at over 9 per cent. Some support also came with former vice-chairman of NITI Aayog Arvind Panagariya’s statement that the economy will grow by over 6.5 per cent in the current financial year. He said the macroeconomic indicators have remained stable for the past three years with current account deficit hovering around one per cent and inflation moderating. Traders also took some solace with the statement of Mukesh Ambani, Reliance Industries chairman that India’s GDP will double to $ 5 trillion in the next seven years and hit $ 10 trillion by 2030 as it will elbow out China by the middle of 21st century.

On the global front, Asian markets were trading mostly in green at this point of time on report that US Senate passed tax-cut legislation, drawing focus away from events in the continuing investigation into connections between Donald Trump’s aides and Russia. The US markets despite coming off their worst levels of the day ended lower in the last session.

Back home, PSU stocks remained on buyers’ radar on report that the Centre is likely to come up with expression of interest (EOI) for strategic sale in three-to-four out of the 16 odd public sector units (PSUs) shortlisted. Stocks related to media sector remained in focus on a private report that the Indian media and entertainment (M&E) industry would nearly double in size by 2022, clocking 11-12 per cent CAGR between 2016 and 2022.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 32894.45, up by 61.51 points or 0.19% after trading in a range of 32785.76 and 33008.47. There were 14 stocks advancing against 17 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in red; the BSE Mid cap index slipped 0.03%, while Small cap index was down by 0.14%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Realty up by 0.78%, IT up by 0.65%, TECK up by 0.64%, Metal up by 0.63%, Telecom up by 0.47%, while Consumer Durables down by 0.36%, FMCG down by 0.28%, Power down by 0.21%, Energy down by 0.18%, Consumer Disc down by 0.14% were the losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Infosys up by 2.56%, Tata Motors up by 2.02%, ONGC up by 1.70%, Tata Motors - DVR up by 1.33% and Bharti Airtel up by 1.30%. On the flip side, Wipro down by 1.47%, Adani Ports down by 1.41%, Sun Pharma down by 1.15%, TCS down by 0.90% and Asian Paints down by 0.88% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, expressing hopes, the structural reforms including the Goods and Services Tax (GST)  and demonetisation will benefit the economy in the medium and long-term, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has said the GST has made doing business easier for traders, to spread business activities in the country. He added the market place for traders had opened the horizons and there is lesser tax compliance burden.

Jaitley elaborated that the GST has reduced the compliance burden on traders as under the new regime a trader is not required to file multiple tax returns. He added that the tax rates too are being rationalised and a trader will no more be required to confront inspectors. He also said that the impact of GST on the economy was limited to one quarter, mainly because of de-stocking by corporates and the impact of demonetisation of high value currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 in November last year was limited to one or two quarters.

On the economic growth, Finance Minister said the country was back on the growth trajectory and the latest Gross Domestic Product (GDP) boost from 5.7 percent in the first quarter to 6.3 percent in the second quarter would give fillip to job creation in the country. He also said the GDP growth of 6.3 percent this quarter had been helped by a rapid growth in manufacturing that increased from 1.2 percent in Q1FY18 to 7 percent in Q2FY18.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 10135.20, up by 13.40 points or 0.13% after trading in a range of 10095.70 and 10179.20. There were 21 stocks advancing against 29 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Indiabulls Housing up by 3.08%, Infosys up by 2.62%, Tata Motors up by 2.14%, ONGC up by 1.81% and GAIL India up by 1.25%. On the flip side, Bajaj Finance down by 1.75%, Adani Ports down by 1.40%, Wipro down by 1.28%, HPCL down by 1.26% and Sun Pharma down by 1.22% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in green; Hang Seng gains 206.89 points or 0.71% to 29,281.13, Taiwan Weighted rose 53.91 points or 0.51% to 10,654.28, KOSPI jumped 16.65 points or 0.67% to 2,492.06, Jakarta Composite added 53.45 points or 0.89% to 6,005.59 and Shanghai Composite was up by 4.03 points or 0.12% to 3,321.65.