Indian bourses continue to trade higher in morning deals

Indian equity benchmarks continued to trade higher in morning session, on the back of buying by funds and retail investors. Sentiments remained upbeat with Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy’s (CMIE) monthly time series data revealed that unemployment rate in the country is decreasing with the economy slowly returning to normal. It said the overall unemployment rate in India was 8.10 per cent in February 2022, which fell to 7.6 per cent in March. Some solace also came in with Niti Aayog Vice Chairman Rajiv Kumar’s statement that India is on the cusp of a major economic recovery and talks of possible stagflation are 'overhyped' as a strong economic foundation is being laid with the reforms carried out by the government over the last seven years. Meanwhile, the government has further extended the existing Foreign Trade Policy (FTP) till September 30 this year. FTP provides guidelines for enhancing exports to push economic growth and create jobs. On the global front, Asian markets are trading mostly in green following the broadly positive cues from Wall Street. However, traders continue to be cautious amid the potential economic impact of the ongoing Russia-Ukraine crisis.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 60752.17, up by 1475.48 points or 2.49% after trading in a range of 59760.22 and 60845.10. There were 23 stocks advancing against 7 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index rose 0.84%, while Small cap index was up by 1.20%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Bankex up by 3.27%, Telecom up by 1.63%, Utilities up by 1.08%, Power up by 1.06% and Capital Goods up by 1.06%, while Realty down by 0.18% was the lone losing index on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were HDFC up by 15.79%, HDFC Bank up by 12.85%, NTPC up by 1.75%, Bharti Airtel up by 1.74% and Kotak Mahindra Bank up by 1.37%. On the flip side, Infosys down by 0.91%, Mahindra & Mahindra down by 0.71%, Indusind Bank down by 0.55%, Maruti Suzuki down by 0.55% and Reliance Industries down by 0.28% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, the finance ministry has said that Goods and Services Tax (GST) collection soared to an all-time high of Rs 1.42 lakh crore in March 2022 as the fiscal year-end frenzy to meet targets saw strong sales and crackdown on evasions brought in more taxes. The GST collection rose 15 percent annually in March.

It stated with the record collection, the Centre's GST mop-up has exceeded the revised budget target of Rs 5.70 lakh crore set for the previous fiscal ended March 31, 2022. The previous high for collection of revenues from goods sold and services rendered was in January 2022 at over Rs 1.40 lakh crore. It said  coupled with economic recovery, anti-evasion activities, especially action against fake billers have been contributing to the enhanced GST. The improvement in revenue has also been due to various rate rationalization measures undertaken by the Council to correct inverted duty structure.

It mentioned the gross GST revenue collected in March 2022 was Rs 1,42,095 crore, of which Central GST was Rs 25,830 crore, State GST Rs 32,378 crore, Integrated GST Rs 74,470 crore (including Rs 39,131 crore collected on import of goods) and cess was Rs 9,417 crore (including Rs 981 crore collected on import of goods). During the month, revenues from import of goods were 25 per cent higher while the revenues from domestic transactions (including import of services) were 11 percent higher than the revenues from these sources in March 2021.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 18066.35, up by 395.90 points or 2.24% after trading in a range of 17791.40 and 18114.65. There were 39 stocks advancing against 11 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were HDFC up by 15.75%, HDFC Bank up by 12.65%, HDFC Life Insurance up by 6.66%, NTPC up by 1.99% and Bharti Airtel up by 1.78%.

On the flip side, ONGC down by 1.07%, Infosys down by 0.97%, Mahindra & Mahindra down by 0.80%, Maruti Suzuki down by 0.59% and Indusind Bank down by 0.46% were the top losers.

Asian markets are trading mostly in green; Hang Seng increased 293.44 points or 1.33% to 22,332.99, Nikkei 225 surged 21.06 points or 0.08% to 27,687.04, KOSPI rose 8.71 points or 0.32% to 2,748.56 and Straits Times advanced 4.26 points or 0.12% to 3,423.37.
On the flip side, Jakarta Composite lost 11.37 points or 0.16% to 7,067.39.