Bulls tighten grip on Dalal Street

Indian equity benchmarks continued their rally in late afternoon session, as bulls have tighten their grip on the street, on the back of firm opening in European markets. Optimism remained on the street with report that government’s revenue collection under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) stood at Rs 7.41 lakh crore (provisional) during the financial year 2017-18 (July 2017 - March 2018). Traders continued to take encouragement with a private report stating that India’s economic growth will accelerate to 7.2% in the current fiscal buoyed by manufacturing activity even as rising oil prices and high government debt remain a challenge. The report noted that the agriculture sector is expected to grow higher than the estimated 2.1% in the current fiscal year on account of positive prospects on Rabi harvest and a normal monsoon, contributing significantly to the national GDP. Some support also came with CII President, Rakesh Bharti Mittal’s statement that the demand in the economy is picking up and it is time private investment started flowing in. He also said that the government must focus on labour reforms to spur job creation in the organised sector and give immediate attention to agriculture. Further, banking stocks gained the most among all other sectoral indices with gains of around 2%, followed by Energy and PSU, while the broader markets too maintained their gains in late noon deals.

On the global front, European markets were trading in green, as investors monitored another batch of earnings while keeping a close eye on the political sphere. Asian markets were also trading in green. Back home, in scrip specific development, Thermax was trading higher after Thermax Group bagged a repeat order of Rs 279 crore from a leading public sector fertilizer company to set up their captive cogeneration plant at Trombay.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 34965.84, up by 252.24 points or 0.73% after trading in a range of 34744.73 and 35065.37. There were 19 stocks advancing against 12 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.64%, while Small cap index was up by 0.57%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Bankex up by 1.99%, Energy up by 1.63%, PSU up by 1.37%, Realty up by 1.20% and Oil & Gas up by 1.16%, while IT down by 0.95% and TECK down by 0.65% were the only losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Axis Bank up by 8.00%, SBI up by 4.46%, ICICI Bank up by 4.14%, Reliance Industries up by 2.52% and Asian Paints up by 2.34%. On the flip side, Maruti Suzuki down by 2.35%, TCS down by 2.24%, Coal India down by 2.08%, Wipro down by 1.81% and Hindustan Unilever down by 1.09% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, the government’s revenue collection under the Goods and Services Tax (GST) stood at Rs 7.41 lakh crore (provisional) during the financial year 2017-18 (July 2017 - March 2018).

According to the latest data released by the government, the collections were at Rs 7.19 lakh crore during the period August 2017- March 2018, which includes Rs 1.19 lakh crore of Central GST (CGST), Rs 1.72 lakh crore of State GST (SGST), Rs 3.66 lakh crore of Integrated GST (IGST) (including Rs 1.73 lakh crore on imports) and Rs 62,021 crore of cess (including Rs 5702 crore on imports). Besides, the average monthly GST Collection stood at Rs 89,885 crore in August-March Period.

The data noted that the total compensation released to the States for a period of eight months during FY18 was Rs 41,147 crore to ensure that the revenue of the States is protected at the level of 14% over the base year tax collection in 2015-16 and the SGST collection during the year, including the settlement of IGST stood at Rs 2.91 lakh crore. Besides, the average revenue gap of all states for last year is around 17%.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 10692.95, up by 75.15 points or 0.71% after trading in a range of 10647.55 and 10719.80. There were 35 stocks advancing against 13 stocks declining, while 2 stocks remained unchanged on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Axis Bank up by 8.09%, SBI up by 4.67%, ICICI Bank up by 4.23%, HPCL up by 3.69% and Asian Paints up by 2.67%. On the flip side, HCL Tech. down by 3.00%, Tech Mahindra down by 2.79%, Maruti Suzuki down by 2.23%, TCS down by 2.19% and Coal India down by 2.18% were the top losers.

All Asian markets were trading in green; Shanghai Composite increased 7.2 points or 0.23% to 3,082.23, Jakarta Composite increased 12.07 points or 0.2% to 5,921.27, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI increased 12.99 points or 0.7% to 1,865.26, KOSPI Index increased 16.76 points or 0.68% to 2,492.40, Taiwan Weighted increased 64.85 points or 0.62% to 10,553.43, Nikkei 225 increased 148.26 points or 0.66% to 22,467.87 and Hang Seng increased 272.99 points or 0.91% to 30,280.67.

All European markets were trading in green; France’s CAC increased 4.02 points or 0.07% to 5,457.60, UK’s FTSE 100 increased 32.78 points or 0.44% to 7,454.21 and Germany’s DAX increased 85.4 points or 0.68% to 12,585.87.