Sensex, Nifty turn red; private bank stocks in demand

The key equity indices pared all gains and turned red in early afternoon trade. The Nifty traded tad above near the 15,750 level. Private bank stocks witnessed some bit of bargain buying after declining in the past two sessions.

At 12:26 IST, the barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex, was down 72.18 points or 0.14% to 52,954.79. The Nifty 50 index lost 41.45 points or 0.26% to 15,757.65.

In the broader market, the S&P BSE Mid-Cap index fell 0.73% while the S&P BSE Small-Cap index slipped 0.60%.

The market breadth was almost even. On the BSE, 1,377 shares rose and 1,743 shares fell. A total of 149 shares were unchanged.

Economy:

The Finance Ministry announced that the government will raise taxes on certain goods and services to 18 per cent from current 12%, after the two-day 47th GST Council Meeting that will be made effective from 18 July 2022.

The Goods and Services Tax Council decided to rationalise tax rates on certain goods and services to remove an inverted duty structure, said Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in Chandigarh.

The GST Council also deferred decision on levying a 28% tax on casinos, online gaming, horse racing and lottery pending more consultations with stakeholders, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said.

The GST Council took no decision on extending beyond this month the compensation paid to states for revenue lost from the implementation of GST. A final decision is likely to be taken at the next meeting of the council in August.

India needs to form Green Hydrogen Corridors and governments can look at providing grants to startups as well as support entrepreneurs to promote green hydrogen, NITI Aayog said on Wednesday.

In a report titled `Harnessing Green Hydrogen - Opportunities for Deep Decarbonisation in India`, the Aayog also suggested that there is a need to facilitate investment through demand aggregation and dollar-based bidding for green hydrogen.

The report suggested that the government should promote the export of green hydrogen and green hydrogen-embedded products through a global hydrogen alliance.

Buzzing Index:

The Nifty Private Bank index rose 0.25% to 16,737.45. The index had declined 1.85% in the past two sessions.

Among the index constituents, Kotak Mahindra Bank (up 1.73%), Axis Bank (up 1.71%) and ICICI Bank (up 0.61%) outperformed.

On the other hand, City Union Bank (down 1.75%), RBL Bank (down 1.42%) and Federal Bank (down 1.09%) turned lower.

Derivatives:

The NSE`s India VIX, a gauge of the market`s expectation of volatility over the near term, rose 0.77% to 22.07. The Nifty 30 June 2022 futures were trading at 15,735.15, at a discount of 22.5 points as compared with the spot at 15,757.65.

The Nifty option chain for the 30 June 2022 expiry showed maximum Call OI of 209.6 lakh contracts at the 16,000 strike price. Maximum Put OI of 118.9 lakh contracts was seen at 15,500 strike price.

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