Benchmarks trade in fine fettle

Despite erasing some of their initial gains, Indian equity benchmarks were trading in fine fettle with Sensex and Nifty trading above their crucial 56,600 and 16,850 levels, respectively. Buying in realty and auto counters too were providing required support to the markets. Traders took encouragement after the Finance Ministry in a report said the government has initiated various measures to provide relief and financial support to various sectors of the Covid-19 hit economy, at the same time, fiscal consolidation is also under focus. Supportive cues from regional markets too provided support to domestic markets as most of the Asian counters were trading in green at this point of time, tracking overnight gains on Wall Street, despite the increasing number of Omicron cases around the globe. Back home, among individual stocks, India Cements zoomed on the back of heavy volume after billionaire investor Radhakishan Damani increased his stake in the company to 22.76 per cent, up from 21.14 per cent at the end of September 2021 quarter.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 56610.86, up by 291.85 points or 0.52% after trading in a range of 56471.03 and 56820.89. There were 24 stocks advancing against 6 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index gained 0.97%, while Small cap index was up by 1.24%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Realty up by 1.91%, Auto up by 1.45%, Industrials up by 1.45%, Telecom up by 1.34% and Capital Goods was up by 1.30%, while there were no losers on the BSE sectoral front.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Bajaj Finance up by 2.05%, Bharti Airtel up by 1.96%, Indusind Bank up by 1.65%, SBI up by 1.48% and Maruti Suzuki up by 1.29%. On the flip side, Power Grid Corporation down by 3.53%, Wipro down by 1.04%, Nestle down by 0.98%, HDFC down by 0.46% and Asian Paints down by 0.42% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, the Finance Ministry in its report said that the government has initiated various measures to provide relief and financial support to various sectors of the Covid-19 hit economy, at the same time, fiscal consolidation is also under focus. It stated that increasing the buoyancy of tax revenue through improved compliance, mobilisation of resources through monetisation of assets, improving efficiency and effectiveness of public expenditure etc.

According to it on half yearly review of the trends in receipts and expenditure in relation to the budget at the end of the first half of the financial year 2021-22, Gross Tax Revenue (GTR) at the end of September 2021 was Rs 11,83,808 crore. This was 53.4 per cent of BE 2021-22 of Rs 22,17,059 crore and reflects an increase of Rs 4,62,912 crore (64.21 per cent) over GTR for Rs 7,20,896 crore in the corresponding period of previous year.

The Budget has projected fiscal deficit of 6.8 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) for the current fiscal ending in March 2022. Besides, it mentioned Fiscal deficit has been estimated at Rs 15,06,812 crore which is 6.8 per cent of projected GDP (Rs 2,22,87,379 crore). The fiscal deficit of Rs 5,26,851 crore in H1, 2021-22 was about 35 per cent of BE. 

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 16866.55, up by 95.70 points or 0.57% after trading in a range of 16819.50 and 16920.35. There were 38 stocks advancing against 12 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Tata Motors up by 2.56%, UPL up by 2.43%, Hindalco up by 2.32%, Bajaj Finance up by 2.16% and Bharti Airtel up by 2.08%. On the flip side, Power Grid Corporation down by 3.36%, Nestle down by 0.91%, Wipro down by 0.88%, Asian Paints down by 0.50% and HDFC down by 0.45% were the top losers.

Asian markets are trading mostly in green; Straits Times added 0.96 points or 0.03% to 3,086.04, Hang Seng gained 42.37 points or 0.18% to 23,013.70, Taiwan Weighted rose 31.89 points or 0.18% to 17,821.16, KOSPI advanced 4.70 points or 0.16% to 2,979.73 and Jakarta Composite was up by 15.79 points or 0.24% to 6,570.10. On the other hand, Nikkei 225 fell 11.54 points or 0.04% to 28,506.05 and Shanghai Composite was down by 5.93 points or 0.16% to 3,619.20.