Markets give thumbs up to Interim Budget, trade at day’s high point

Extending early gains, the local equity markets reached at their intra-day high levels in afternoon session, as the interim Budget's proposal to give full rebate to tax payers having annual income up to Rs 5 lakh boosted the investor sentiment. Sentiment on the street improved after Indian manufacturing sector surged in the month of January, with the quickest increase in order books. As per the survey report, the Nikkei India Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) - a composite single-figure indicator of manufacturing performance - rose to 53.9 in January from 53.2 in December. The manufacturing sector activity expanded for the 18th consecutive month as the PMI reading stood above the watershed 50 mark, which differentiates growth from contraction. Besides, optimism around corporate earnings and stronger Asian shares too brought some cheer on the street. On the sectoral front, shares of companies related to power industry soared after Finance Minister Piyush Goyal announced that India's installed solar power generation capacity has grown 10 times the country.

On the global front, Asian markets were trading mixed, with investors treading carefully as China-US trade talks ended with no deal but with both sides sounding notes of optimism and setting up more high-level meetings later this month. Back home, the BSE Sensex is currently trading at 36757.87, up by 501.18 points or 1.38% after trading in a range of 36261.95 and 36765.13. There were 26 stocks advancing against 5 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index rose 1.33%, while Small cap index was up by 0.92%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Auto up by 4.76%, Realty up by 3.91%, Consumer Disc up by 2.98%, FMCG up by 2.07% and Industrials up by 1.37%, while Metal down by 2.58%, Basic Materials down by 0.70% were the top losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Hero MotoCorp up by 7.38%, Maruti Suzuki up by 7.27%, Mahindra & Mahindra up by 3.78%, Bajaj Auto up by 3.71% and Bajaj Finance up by 3.66%. On the flip side, Vedanta down by 16.46%, Axis Bank down by 0.96%, Yes Bank down by 0.62%, ICICI Bank down by 0.44% and Power Grid down by 0.03% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, The Finance Ministry has said that revenue collection from Goods and Services Tax (GST) in the month of January 2019 surpassed Rs 1 lakh crore-mark, after a gap of 2 months. It noted that this has been a significant improvement over collection of Rs 94,725 crore during December 2018 and Rs 89,825 crore during the same month last year.

The ministry stated that this increase has been achieved despite various tax relief measures implemented by the GST Council to lower the tax burden on the consumers. It said that this is the third time in current fiscal that GST collections have crossed the Rs 1 lakh crore-mark. It also said that previously in April and October, the collections had surpassed this milestone. It further indicated that GST collection stood at Rs 1.03 lakh crore in April, Rs 94,016 crore in May, Rs 95,610 crore in June, Rs 96,483 crore in July, Rs 93,960 crore in August, Rs 94,442 crore in September, Rs 1,00,710 crore in October, Rs 97,637 crore in November and Rs 94,725 crore in December 2018.

The government's GST collection target is set at over Rs 13 lakh crore for the financial year 2018-19, which can be achieved if the average monthly mop up is around Rs 1 lakh crore, as compared with Rs 89,885 crore in 2017-18. Till now (April-January), the government has collected Rs 9.71 lakh crore revenue from GST
The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 10979.95, up by 149.00 points or 1.38% after trading in a range of 10835.85 and 10983.45. There were 39 stocks advancing against 11 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Maruti Suzuki up by 8.15%, Hero MotoCorp up by 7.66%, Eicher Motors up by 5.52%, Mahindra & Mahindra up by 4.87% and Indiabulls Housing Finance up by 4.75%. On the flip side, Vedanta down by 16.39%, BPCL down by 1.03%, Axis Bank down by 0.83%, ICICI Bank down by 0.59% and Ultratech Cement down by 0.55% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mixed; Nikkei 225 surged 14.90 points or 0.07% to 20,788.39, Jakarta Composite soared 25.23 points or 0.39% to 6,558.20 and Shanghai Composite gained 33.66 points or 1.3% to 2,618.23.

On the flip side, Straits Times trembled 2.49 points or 0.08% to 3,187.68, Hang Seng decreased 42.54 points or 0.15% to 27,899.93 and KOSPI fell 1.39 points or 0.06% to 2,203.46.