Sensex, Nifty continue to trade higher in later morning session

Aided by positive cues from other Asian markets, Indian equity benchmarks continued to trade higher in late morning session, with both Sensex and Nifty holding notable gains. Sentiments remained optimistic, as Services Export Promotion Council (SEPC) said that implementation of the proposed India-UK free trade agreement will help to boost the country's services exports, particularly from legal, accounting and auditing sectors. Adding some more relief, a private report stated that the Indian software-as-a-services (SaaS) market is expected to grow multi-fold by 2025, accounting for almost 7 to 10 per cent of the global market from 2 to 4 per cent currently.

On the global front, Asian markets were trading mostly in green, even after Hong Kong's merchandise exports decreased for the third straight month in July, while imports fell for the first time in four months. The data from the Census and Statistics Department showed that exports fell 8.9 percent year-on-year in July, faster than the 6.4 percent decrease in June. Imports declined notably by 9.9 percent annually in July, reversing a 0.5 percent rise in the previous month.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 59014.25, up by 239.53 points or 0.41% after trading in a range of 58940.06 and 59321.65. There were 24 stocks advancing against 6 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.75%, while Small cap index was up by 0.67%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Metal up by 2.06%, Consumer Durables up by 1.67%, Industrials up by 1.39%, PSU up by 1.34% and Capital Goods up by 1.31%, while there were no losing sectoral indices on the BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Titan Co up by 3.03%, Tata Steel up by 2.31%, Tech Mahindra up by 1.81%, NTPC up by 1.70% and Mahindra & Mahindra up by 1.57%. On the flip side, Indusind Bank down by 1.59%, Asian Paints down by 1.46%, Bharti Airtel down by 1.09%, HDFC down by 0.45% and Reliance Industries down by 0.36% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, the Income-tax department has collected around Rs 28 crore in taxes after about 1 lakh returns were filed by taxpayers under the newly introduced return filing form called ITR-U, that was notified this year as part of the Budget 2022-23.

CBDT Chairman Nitin Gupta has said that the scheme was brought by the Union government for the benefit of taxpayers so that they can comply with their tax responsibilities without getting into hassles of the law. The abbreviation ITR-U stands for 'income tax return-updated' and is available to taxpayers for filing updated returns for 2019-20 and 2020-21 financial years or assessment years 2020-21 and 2021-22. Taxpayers filing this form, which can be filed within 2 years of the end of the relevant assessment year, will have to give reasons for updating the income -- return previously not filed or income not reported correctly or wrong heads of income chosen or reduction of carried forward loss.

Gupta further said such schemes could also be utilised by those categories of taxpayers who have income from online games, lotteries and betting etc. This is a provision for them to come forward and pay taxes rather than face the consequences of penalty or any other legal action under the income tax law. The department is looking at all such businesses including online betting and gaming and cited the example of raids conducted by the taxman against a Mumbai-based group engaged in online cricket betting and gaming in February. The CBDT had then said in a statement that the tax department detected a ‘cash’ turnover of Rs 600 crore that was made by the company in six months.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 17605.10, up by 82.65 points or 0.47% after trading in a range of 17581.30 and 17685.85. There were 42 stocks advancing against 8 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Titan Co up by 3.17%, Hindalco up by 2.56%, JSW Steel up by 2.51%, SBI Life Insurance up by 2.24% and Tata Motors up by 2.20%. On the flip side, Eicher Motors down by 2.26%, Indusind Bank down by 1.49%, Bharti Airtel down by 1.44%, Asian Paints down by 1.41% and Reliance Industries down by 0.45% were the top losers.

Asian markets were trading mostly in green; Nikkei 225 surged 162.37 points or 0.57% to 28,641.38, Hang Seng increased 91.96 points or 0.46% to 20,060.34, Taiwan Weighted strengthened 75.79 points or 0.5% to 15,275.83, Straits Times advanced 8.62 points or 0.27% to 3,256.42, KOSPI rose 3.03 points or 0.12% to 2,480.29 and Shanghai Composite gained 4.34 points or 0.13% to 3,250.59. On the flip side, Jakarta Composite lost 7.21 points or 0.1% to 7,167.00.