Benchmarks trade in green; hold early gains

Indian equities continued to trade in fine fettle on back of strong buying in frontline counters in the late morning session amid a firm Asian trend. Domestic players however remained cautious ahead of the Railway Budget, Economic Survey and Union Budget this week. The traders were seen piling up position in IT, TECk and Auto, while selling was seen in Realty, Oil & Gas, and FMCG sectors. In scrip specific development, NBFC stocks like Mahindra & Mahindra Financial Services, L&T Finance Holdings, Bajaj Finserv, Bajaj Finance and Reliance Capital edged higher after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) issued guidelines for the new bank licences, which will pave the way for both corporate entities and NBFC to begin banking operations. The most important thing is that RBI has not excluded companies or entities from any specific industry from applying for a new bank licence.

In scrip specific actions, Ranbaxy Laboratories surged on commencing production of Atorvastatin product. Infosys soared on launching Central Processing Center for the Income Tax Department for efficient administration and processing of tax deducted at source. State Bank of India gained after the bank stated that its executive committee of central board has approved raising Rs 3004 crore through preferential allotment of equity shares to the Government of India.

Meanwhile, the NSE Nifty and BSE Sensex were trading near their psychological 5800 and 19,300 levels respectively.

The market breadth on BSE was showing positive trend with advances to declines in ratio of 1104:889.

The BSE Sensex is currently trading at 19357.16, up by 40.15 points or 0.21% after trading in a range of 19382.89 and 19280.46. There were 18 stocks advancing against 12 declines on the index.

The broader indices were trading in green; the BSE Mid cap index was up by 0.30% and Small cap index gained 0.22%.

The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, IT up by 1.92%, TECk up by 1.55%, Auto up by 0.64%, Power up by 0.55% and Consumer Durables up by 0.24%.while Realty down by 0.76%, Oil & Gas down by 0.74%, FMCG down by 0.30%, Capital Goods down by 0.25% and PSU down by 0.06%were the losers on the BSE.

The top gainers on the Sensex were Infosys up by 2.55%, Wipro up by 2.31%, Tata Motors up by 2.08%, TCS up by 1.30%, Jindal Steel up by 0.99%.

On the flip side, Cipla was down by 1.51%, Hero MotoCorp was down by 1.22%, Coal India was down by 1.08%, RIL down by 0.99% and Dr Reddys Lab was down by 0.98%,were the top losers on the Sensex.

Meanwhile, admitting that there is a need to move towards a technology driven tax administration, Finance Minister P Chidambaram said income tax department should move towards information technology, which will help to process the TDS returns and capture massive data so that government gets revenue and taxpayers get refund.

While inaugurating the Centralized Processing Cell (CPC) of the Income Tax department, he said 'we will have to get each one of the 28 lakh tax deductees (under TDS). The tax amount would be credited to the government and refund would be credited to the deductee. And this can be done only if we move to technology.’

By adding further he said, a technology driven tax administration would assist the tax deductor, tax collector and also the payee. It will also help all the three get linked to each other without being manually involved in the process. The CPC would process all Tax Deducted at Source (TDS) applications and would help ease the compliance procedure for taxpayers.

Concerned over the widening fiscal deficit, the government had earlier issued stern warning to tax evaders, asking them to disclose their correct income and pay advance tax by due date or be prepared to face action. The government has realized around 28 lakh deductees, of which only 14 lakh people have filed return. Despite slowdown in economic activities, the government is confident for meeting the Rs 5.70 lakh crore direct tax target for the fiscal. Direct taxes include income tax, corporate tax and wealth tax.

The gross collection of direct taxes stood at over Rs 4.55 lakh crore during the April-January period of current fiscal, as against Rs 4.25 lakh crore in the same period in 2011-12.The CNX Nifty is currently trading at 5,864.00 up by 13.70 points or 0.23% after trading in a range of 5,874.25 and 5,837.30. There were 28 stocks advancing against 22 declines on the index.

The top gainers of the Nifty were Ranbaxy up by 3.62%, Infosys up by 2.45%, Tata Motors up by 2.20%, Wipro up by 2.20% and Power Grid up by 1.83%.

On the flip side, DLF down by2.22%, UltraTech Cement down by 1.78%, CIPLA down by 1.63%, BPCL down by 1.62%, Kotak Bank down by 1.56% were the major losers on the index.

Most of the Asian equity indices were trading in the green; Shanghai Composite rose 6.96 points or 0.30% to 2,321.12, Hang Seng increased by 8.70 points or 0.04% to 22,791.14, Jakarta Composite jumped 22.49 points or 0.51% to 4,674.62, KLSE Composite added 3.34 points or 0.21% to 1,625.42, Nikkei 225 surged 224.67 points or 1.97% to 11,610.61 and Straits Times was up by 3.86 points or 0.13% to 3,292.32.

On the flip side, KOSPI Composite dipped 6.16 points or 0.31% to 2,012.40 and Taiwan Weighted was up by 21.91 points or 0.27% to 7,966.36.