Extending northward journey to fourth day in a row, Indian equity benchmarks made a gap-up opening with both the frontline indices trading with gains of over two percentage points, surpassing their crucial 5,800 (Nifty) and 19,600 (Sensex) bastions supported by firm global cues. The US markets surged overnight, extending their previous week’s gain on upbeat Chinese data as well as the latest developments regarding the situation in Syria. Moreover, most of the Asian equity benchmarks were trading in fine fettle with Chinese Shanghai trading in the green in morning deals as investors were hopeful that industrial output and retail sales will provide more evidence the world's second biggest economy has averted a sharp slowdown.
Back home, sentiments also remained higher after Indian rupee strengthened to 64.24 against the dollar after closing at 65.02 on Friday as receding geopolitical risks from Syria and strong exports in August helped lift the currency. Telecom stocks like, Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular and Reliance Communication remained on the buyers’ radar on the buzz in the telecom sector, as the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) proposed a hefty cut of up to 60 percent in minimum auction prices for mobile phone spectrum in a response to lukewarm interest. The regulator has recommended a 37 percent cut in the all-India reserve price of the 1800 megahertz frequency band that are used for basic mobile services. Additionally, the aviation stocks too were trading jubilantly as the aviation ministry has called for state governments across the country to discuss on a possible mechanism to reduce the tax on aviation turbine fuel (ATF) whose price was hiked by a steep 6.9% last week.
All the sectoral indices on the BSE were trading in the green with Auto and Capital Goods segments gaining the most. Banking, realty, technology, FMCG and power too were trading with significant gains. The broader indices too were trading with traction, while the market breadth on the BSE was positive; there were 920 shares on the gaining side against 286 shares on the losing side while 36 shares remain unchanged.
The BSE Sensex opened at 19448.39; about 178 points higher compared to its previous closing of 19270.06, and has touched a high and a low of 19721.33 and 19444.66 respectively. The index is currently trading at 19663.96, up by 393.90 points or 2.04%. There were 28 stocks advancing against 2 declines on the index.
The overall market breadth has made a strong start with 73.92% stocks advancing against 23.13% declines. The broader indices, the BSE Mid cap and Small cap indices were up by 1.21% and 1.07% respectively.
The top gaining sectoral indices on the BSE were, Auto up by 3.02%, Capital Goods up by 2.70%, Bankex up by 2.14%, Realty up by 2.06% and Teck up by 1.99%, while there were no losers on the sectoral index.
The top gainers on the Sensex were Tata Motors up by 5.32%, HDFC up by 4.82%, Bharti Airtel up by 4.59%, L&T up by 3.56% and Maruti Suzuki up by 2.88%. On the flip side, BHEL was down by 0.78% and ONGC was down by 0.40% were the top losers on the Sensex.
Meanwhile, in an indication that the government will face difficulty in meeting its revenue target, the gross direct tax, which includes personal income tax, corporate tax, securities transaction tax and wealth tax, collections rose by 14.43% to Rs 1.88 lakh crore during the April-August period of 2013-14 fiscal as against Rs 1.64 lakh crore in the same period last year.
The rise is much lesser than the total budgeted target of the Rs 6.68 lakh crore, representing a growth of 19 per cent from Rs 5.65 lakh crore in the previous fiscal that the government plans to collect through corporate tax, income tax and wealth tax this fiscal year. While corporate tax collection, in view of the slowdown in economic activity, grew by 11.72%, to Rs 1,08,075 crore from Rs 96,738 crore a year earlier, gross collection of personal income tax was up by 18.91% to Rs 78,187 crore in the first five months of this fiscal, from Rs 65,752 crore in the year ago period. Additionally, Securities transaction tax or (STT) mop-up stands at Rs 1,649 crore, while wealth tax collection posted a growth of 24.44% to Rs 280 crore against Rs.225 crore collected in the same period last fiscal.
However, interestingly, net direct tax collections during the April-August period this fiscal rose at a faster pace of 15.42% to Rs 1,43,138 crore as compared to Rs 1,24,019 crore mopped up in the same period a year ago.
The CNX Nifty opened at 5,738.50; about 58 point higher as compared to its previous closing of 5,680.40, and has touched a high and a low of 5,814.85 and 5,738.20 respectively.
The index is currently trading at 5,800.05, up by 119.65 points or 2.11%. There were 48 stocks advancing against 2 declines on the index.
The top gainers of the Nifty were Axis Bank up by 5.37%, Tata Motors up by 5.35%, HDFC up by 5.13%, Bharti Airtel up by 4.65% and Power Grid up by 3.44%. On the flip side, BHEL down by 1.34% and ONGC down by 0.02% were the major losers on the index.
Most of the Asian equity indices were trading in green; Shanghai Composite rose 5.00 points or 0.23% to 2,217.52, Hang Seng jumped 134.74 points or 0.59% to 22,885.39, Jakarta Composite soared 83.57 points or 1.99% to 4,274.83, KLSE Composite increased 13.37 points or 0.77% to 1,760.40, Nikkei 225 surged 166.30 points or 1.17% to 14,371.53, Straits Times added 7.46 points or 0.24% to 3,095.66 and Seoul Composite was up by 3.89 points or 0.20% to 1,978.56.
On the flip side, Taiwan Weighted was down by 24.14 points or 0.29% to 8,167.97.
