Key gauges remain in green in morning deals

Indian equity benchmarks continued to trade in green in morning deals, amid buying interest in Energy and Banking stocks. Sentiments remained positive as the Reserve Bank issued draft guidelines to further liberalise regulatory framework governing overseas investments with a view to promote ease of doing business. The RBI has placed on its website two documents -- draft Foreign Exchange Management (Non-debt Instruments - Overseas Investment) Rules, 2021 and draft Foreign Exchange Management (Overseas Investment) Regulations, 2021. Traders also took a note of Commerce Secretary B V R Subrahmanyam’s statement that public procurement platform GeM needs to expand further and include state level procedures and preferences in the portal so that it can help MSMEs more. Meanwhile, Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary’s statement that net Goods and Services Tax (GST) collection in the April-June quarter was over Rs 1.67 lakh crore, which is 26.6 percent of the budget estimate of Rs 6.30 lakh crore for full 2021-22 fiscal. On the global front, Asian markets were trading mostly in red after a largely soft performance on Wall Street and as persistent concerns over the spread of the Delta variant of the coronavirus dented sentiment and triggered falls in metals and oil prices.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 54612.43, up by 209.58 points or 0.39% after trading in a range of 54450.34 and 54683.45. There were 16 stocks advancing against 14 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading mixed; the BSE Mid cap index rose 0.21%, while Small cap index was down by 0.15%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Energy up by 0.67%, Bankex up by 0.60%, Consumer Durables up by 0.58%, IT up by 0.39% and TECK up by 0.33%, while Realty down by 0.75%, Utilities down by 0.35%, Power down by 0.27%, Basic Materials down by 0.25% and FMCG down by 0.25% were the top losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Kotak Mahindra Bank up by 1.77%, Mahindra & Mahindra up by 1.34%, Tech Mahindra up by 1.19%, HDFC up by 0.97% and Titan Company up by 0.96%. On the flip side, Power Grid Corporation down by 1.67%, Bajaj Auto down by 0.64%, SBI down by 0.58%, Nestle down by 0.43% and Sun Pharma down by 0.39% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary has said that net Goods and Services Tax (GST) collection in the April-June quarter was over Rs 1.67 lakh crore, which is 26.6 percent of the budget estimate of Rs 6.30 lakh crore for full 2021-22 fiscal. The net GST collections include Central GST+Integrated GST+Compensation cess.  In the 2020-21 fiscal, the net GST collection was over Rs 5.48 lakh crore, which was more than the revised estimates (RE) of Rs 5.15 lakh crore. In 2019-20, the net collection was over Rs 5.98 lakh crore, which is 97.8 per cent of the RE.

Chaudhary said the government has been making concerted efforts to raise tax revenue collections which inter-alia includes GST rate rationalisation to improve tax compliance, e-invoice system, mandatory e-filing and e-payment of taxes, penalty for delayed payment, extensive use of third-party sources such as State VAT Department, Income Tax etc, for compliance verification, regular enforcement and compliance verification of tax returns.

Further, the minister said system based analytical tools and system generated red flag reports are being shared with central as well as state tax authorities to take action against tax evaders. He added that E-way bill squads have been activated for the purposes of random verification of the goods in transit.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 16305.05, up by 46.80 points or 0.29% after trading in a range of 16261.05 and 16329.75. There were 24 stocks advancing against 26 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Kotak Mahindra Bank up by 1.80%, Mahindra & Mahindra up by 1.35%, Tech Mahindra up by 1.16%, Titan Co up by 1.04% and HDFC up by 0.92%. On the flip side, Shree Cement down by 3.48%, Power Grid Corporation down by 1.67%, JSW Steel down by 0.72%, Bajaj Auto down by 0.62% and Cipla down by 0.58% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in red; Taiwan Weighted dropped 140.54 points or 0.8% to 17,344.61, Jakarta Composite lost 79.31 points or 1.29% to 6,048.15, KOSPI fell 23.99 points or 0.74% to 3,236.43 and Shanghai Composite declined 4.89 points or 0.14% to 3,489.74.

On the flip side, Straits Times advanced 18.22 points or 0.57% to 3,195.40, Nikkei 225 surged 45.56 points or 0.16% to 27,865.60 and Hang Seng increased 76.32 points or 0.29% to 26,359.72.