Local equities continue firm trade; Nifty reclaims 12,200 mark

Local equity markets continued their firm trade in the morning session on account of buying in front line counters, as market participants cheered Beijing’s monetary policy easing decision and upbeat cues on the Sino-US trade deal front. Traders remained optimistic as a private business survey showed that India's factory activity expanded at its fastest pace in seven months in December as a jump in new orders prompted companies to ramp up production. The Nikkei Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index rose to 52.7 in the final month of 2019 from November's 51.2. Sentiments also energized with a report that Goods and services tax (GST) collections in December came in at Rs 1,03,184 crore, closer to the mop-up in the previous month and up 9% over the year-ago month. This has indicated an improvement from the September-October period, when the collections were substantially below the Rs 1-lakh-crore mark and even lower than in the year-ago period. Besides, a government’s data showed that foreign direct investment into India grew 15% to $26 billion during the first half of the current financial year. Inflow of foreign direct investment (FDI) during April-September of 2018-19 stood at $22.66 billion.

On the global turf, Asian markets were trading mostly in green, on optimism about a US-China trade deal as regional markets opened the New Year’s first day of trading. Back home, Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation in its latest report for October 2019 has indicated that as many as 388 infrastructure projects, each worth Rs 150 crore or more, have shown cost overruns to the tune of over Rs 4 lakh crore on account of delays and other reasons.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 41462.59, up by 156.57 points or 0.38% after trading in a range of 41328.45 and 41478.59. There were 21 stocks advancing against 9 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index gained 0.52%, while Small cap index was up by 0.82%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Basic Materials up by 2.11%, Metal up by 1.66%, Capital Goods up by 1.01%, Industrials up by 0.98% and Energy was up by 0.69%, while Consumer Durables down by 0.40%, IT down by 0.11%, Power down by 0.10% and TECK was down by 0.07% were the few losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Ultratech Cement up by 3.71%, Tata Steel up by 2.67%, Larsen & Toubro up by 1.27%, Reliance Industries was up by 0.95% and Bajaj Finance up by 0.70%. On the flip side, TCS down by 0.67%, Titan Co down by 0.64%, Power Grid down by 0.43%, Bajaj Auto down by 0.43% and Sun Pharma was down by 0.22% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, the finance ministry in its latest data has showed that Goods and services tax (GST) collections surged about 9% in December 2019 to Rs 1,03,184 crore, from Rs 94,726 crore a year earlier. This improvement has come largely because of steps taken to increase compliance and check evasion.  It was a second time in a row, the GST revenue collection remained above the Rs 1 lakh crore mark. GST collection in November 2019 stood at Rs 1,03,492 crore.

Of the gross Rs 1,03,184 crore last month, CGST is Rs 19,962 crore, SGST is Rs 26,792 crore, IGST is Rs 48,099 crore (including Rs 21,295 crore collected on imports) and Cess is Rs 8,331 crore (including Rs 847 crore collected on imports).

The ministry mentioned that GST revenues in December 2019 from domestic transactions have shown an impressive growth of 16% over revenues collected in December 2018. Among provinces, Jammu and Kashmir showed the highest year-on-year increase in collections, which rose 40% to Rs 409 crore last month. Maharashtra achieved the highest GST collection at Rs 16,530 crore, a 22% increase from December last year.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 12234.70, up by 52.20 points or 0.43% after trading in a range of 12195.25 and 12235.50. There were 38 stocks advancing against 12 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Ultratech Cement up by 4.26%, Tata Steel up by 2.68%, JSW Steel up by 2.52%, Tata Motors up by 2.09% and Grasim Industries was up by 1.94%. On the flip side, Zee Entertainment down by 1.00%, Titan Company down by 0.71%, Coal India down by 0.71%, BPCL down by 0.68% and TCS was down by 0.66% were the top losers.

Asian markets are trading mostly in green, Hang Seng increased 276.61 points or 0.98% to 28,466.36, Taiwan Weighted strengthened 101.23 points or 0.84% to 12,098.37, Shanghai Composite gained 37.04 points or 1.21% to 3,087.16 and Straits Times was up by 11.47 points or 0.36% to 3,234.30.
On the other side, KOSPI fell 14.56 points or 0.66% to 2,183.11 and Jakarta Composite lost 28.43 points or 0.45% to 6,271.11.