Sensex tops 31,900, Nifty breaches 10,000 again; GST revamp, earnings optimism uplift markets

The key equity indices Sensex and Nifty opened marginally higher on Monday and extended the gains following the recent ease in tax slabs under the GST regime on Friday. The government lowered taxes on as many as 27 goods and services in the third GST Council meeting after implementation of Goods and Services. The benchmark Sensex jumped 98 points to breach 31,900-level at 31,912 points while the broader Nifty advanced 26 points to cross the 10,000-mark at 10,006.45 points. BSE Sensex gained 48 points to open at 31,862.2 points and NSE Nifty added 16 points to start at 9,996.3 points. The domestic markets will likely to be steered by earnings of IT bellwether Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) as well as the key inflation and IIP data. The market participants are keenly awaiting the second quarter earnings to gauge the direction of equities from here.

Shares of Tata Steel, Cipla, Tata Motors, ICICI Bank, L&T and Coal India were the major gainer on Sensex while Adani Ports, Power Grid, Reliance Industries lost the ground, fell up to 1.27%. The stocks of heavyweight companies such as ICICI Bank, L&T, Infosys, ITC, And Tata Motors contributed the most to the index gains. Collectively these five stocks alone added about 68 points out of the 92-point gain in the index.

The third GST Council meeting since the implementation of Goods and Services Tax in India brought a spate of good news for exporters and small businesses, but also had something to offer to consumers as well, albeit less than what was widely expected. The GST Council, headed by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, reviewed the rate of tax under GST on as many as 27 goods and services, mostly lowering the tax on these items of common use. However, the number of items discussed for a review of rates in Friday’s meeting in New Delhi was far lower than the 60 items under review, on which the government was expected to cut taxes.

Wall Street shares ended mixed on Friday with the S&P 500 ending a six-day run of record highs as the first monthly decline in US nonfarm jobs in seven years dampened sentiment while pharmacy shares fell on Amazon competition fears. The Nasdaq ended up for a ninth straight day, however, and set its sixth straight record high close, its longest such streak since seven records in February, Reuters reported. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.72 points, or 0.01 percent, to end at 22,773.67, the S&P 500 lost 2.74 points, or 0.11 percent, to 2,549.33 and the Nasdaq Composite added 4.82 points, or 0.07 percent, to 6,590.18.