Indian equites make jubilant start of the Budget day

Indian equity indices made a jubilant start of the special session of annual budget 2023-24, with the major benchmarks Sensex and Nifty are placed well above their crucial psychological levels of 59,900 and 17,750 respectively. All eyes are on the Union Budget announcements by Finance Minister in the parliament later in the day. Investors cheered the positive core sector data. The government data showed that production of eight infrastructure sectors rose at a three-month high of 7.4 per cent in December 2022 against 4.1 per cent in the same month of previous year on a better show by coal, fertiliser, steel, and electricity segments. Adding more optimism, the finance ministry said the GST collection in January surged to over Rs 1.55 lakh crore, the second highest-ever mop-up. Meanwhile, market participants are looking ahead to the manufacturing PMI data to be out later in the day for more cues.

Most of the Asian markets are trading higher, following the broadly positive cues from Wall Street overnight, with traders remaining cautious ahead of the US Fed rate decision and accompanying statement later in the day. Back home, sugar stocks were in focus as industry body ISMA said India's sugar production is estimated to fall 5 per cent during 2022-23 marketing year ending September to 340 lakh tonnes as more quantity of sugarcane juice is being diverted for production of ethanol. In stock specific developments, Indian Hotels soared after its quarterly profit soared more than 400 percent, while Indian Oil Corporation was down after its third-quarter net profit declined 92 percent due to under recoveries from sale of domestic LPG.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 59937.61, up by 387.71 points or 0.65% after trading in a range of 59807.68 and 60066.87. There were 25 stocks advancing against 5 stocks declining on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index rose 1.04%, while Small cap index was up by 1.29%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were Metal up by 1.42%, Realty up by 1.33%, Consumer Durables up by 1.20%, Bankex up by 1.07%, Industrials up by 1.02%, while Oil & Gas down by 0.96%, Energy down by 0.83%, Utilities down by 0.14%, Power down by 0.09% were the few losing indices on BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were ICICI Bank up by 2.33%, Tata Steel up by 1.50%, Asian Paints up by 1.38%, Tech Mahindra up by 1.35% and Kotak Mahindra Bank up by 1.25%. On the flip side, Sun Pharma down by 1.41%, Mahindra & Mahindra down by 0.86%, ITC down by 0.21%, Indusind Bank down by 0.18% and Ultratech Cement down by 0.06% were the top losers.

Meanwhile, the finance ministry has said that the Goods and Services Tax (GST) collection surged to over Rs 1.55 lakh crore in January, the second highest-ever mop-up. It said the gross GST revenue collected in the month of January 2023 is Rs 1,55,922 crore of which CGST is Rs 28,963 crore, SGST is Rs 36,730 crore, IGST is Rs 79,599 crore (including Rs 37,118 crore collected on import of goods) and cess is Rs 10,630 crore (including Rs 768 crore collected on import of goods).

The revenues in the current financial year up to January 2023 are 24 per cent higher than the GST revenues during the same period last year. This is for the third time, in the current financial year, GST collection has crossed Rs 1.50 lakh crore mark. The GST collection in January 2023 is the second highest next only to the Rs 1.68 lakh crore gross mop-up reported in April 2022.

The ministry said 'Over the last year, various efforts have been made to increase the tax base and improve compliance. The percentage of filing of GST returns (GSTR-3B) and of the statement of invoices (GSTR-1), till the end of the month, has improved significantly over years’. It added in the October-December 2022 quarter, a total of 2.42 crore GST returns were filed till the end of the next month compared to 2.19 crore in the same quarter of the last year. This is due to various policy changes introduced during the year to improve compliance.

The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 17768.95, up by 106.80 points or 0.60% after trading in a range of 17735.70 and 17815.30. There were 40 stocks advancing against 10 stocks declining on the index.

The top gainers on Nifty were Britannia Industries up by 2.37%, Hindalco up by 2.33%, ICICI Bank up by 2.29%, Divi's Lab up by 2.01% and Tata Consumer Products up by 1.54%. On the flip side, Adani Enterprises down by 2.62%, Adani Ports & SEZ down by 1.49%, Sun Pharma down by 1.35%, BPCL down by 0.96% and UPL down by 0.87% were the top losers.

Asian markets are trading mostly in green; Taiwan Weighted surged 79.66 points or 0.52% to 15,344.86, Hang Seng advanced 63.41 points or 0.29% to 21,905.74, Nikkei 225 strengthened 31.6 points or 0.12% to 27,358.71, Jakarta Composite gained 30.86 points or 0.45% to 6,870.20, KOSPI increased 19.34 points or 0.8% to 2,444.42 and Shanghai Composite added 3.26 points or 0.1% to 3,258.93, while Straits Times was down by 5.42 points or 0.16% to 3,360.25.