After losing momentum in the earlier part of the day when FM Arun Jaitley began budget speech, markets have suddenly gained ground after the corporate tax rate got slashed. Currently, the corporate tax rate is in the region of 30% which has been proposed to be lowered to 25% over the next 4 years. Reduction in tax rate will come as a huge benefit for India Inc which has been struggling of poor performance of late.
Stocks from the oil & gas space have fallen in the range of 1-2% as there are fears that the FM might increase the customs duty on crude oil. An increase in customs duty will lower the refining margins and hurt these companies. Considering that crude oil has fallen quite a bit it won't be surprising if the government decides to increase customs duty and fill it coffers. It remains to be seen what happens in this regards.
BSE-Sensex is currently trading up by about 293 points (up 1.07%), while the NSE-Nifty is higher by about 89 points (up 0.94%). Both BSE Mid Cap and BSE Small Cap indices are also trading in green, up by 0.22% and 0.03% respectively.
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