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Sensex Near All-Time High, Fiscal Deficit Rising, and Top Stocks in Action
Tue, 2 Apr Pre-Open

On Monday, share markets in India opened on a positive note, recorded a new all-time high level and ended the day in green after an dull day of trading.

The BSE Sensex closed lower by 199 points to end the day at 38,872. While the broader NSE Nifty ended up by 32 points, to end the day at 11,656 points.

Among BSE sectoral indices, metal stocks rose the most by 2.1%, followed by IT stocks at 1.7%. Tata Motors and Vedanta were among the top gainers.

Top Stocks in Action Today

Tata Motors share price will be in focus today after the company's wholly owned subsidiary Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) said it expects improved financial results for the quarter ended March 2019 (Q4FY19).

As per an article in a leading financial daily, the company continues to execute its product plans and project charge turnaround strategy to deliver 2.5 billion pounds of cash flow improvements by March 2020.

Cipla share price is likely to be in focus as it received 8 good manufacturing practices observations from the US health regulator after inspection of Kurkumbh plant, Maharashtra.

The US Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) conducted a product specific pre-approval (PAI) and Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) inspection at company's Kurkumbh plant from March 11 to 20 this year.

The inspection covered three units at the plant.

Fiscal Deficit at Sky-High Levels

According to Controller General of Accounts (CGA) data, the country's fiscal deficit touched 134.2% of the full-year revised budgeted estimate at the end of February 2019, mainly due to tepid growth in revenue collection.

In absolute term, fiscal deficit for April-February 2018-19 was Rs 8.5 trillion as against the revised estimate (RE) of Rs 6.3 trillion for the entire year.

The CGA data revealed that revenue receipts of the central government were Rs 12.7 trillion or 73.2% of the revised budgetary estimate (BE) at February end. In the same period last fiscal, the revenue collection was 78.2% of the estimates.

The government's tax revenue stood at Rs 10.9 trillion and non-tax revenue was Rs 1.7 trillion.

Total expenditure incurred by the government during April-February 2018-19 was Rs 21.9 trillion (89.1% of RE), of which Rs 19.2 trillion was on revenue account and Rs 2.7 trillion on capital account.

Out of the total revenue expenditure, Rs 5 trillion was on account of interest payments and Rs 2.6 trillion on major subsidies.

Meanwhile, the finance ministry in a statement said that Rs 6 trillion has been transferred to the state governments as devolution of share of taxes by the central government up to February, which is Rs 670.4 billion higher than the corresponding period of last year 2017-18.

The fiscal deficit target for FY19 was revised upwards to 3.4% of GDP in the interim budget for FY20 presented on February 1 from 3.3% estimated initially.

The fiscal deficit at the end of February last year was 20.3% more than the revised estimate. The government missed the target for the year and ended with a fiscal deficit of 3.5% of GDP in FY18 against a target of 3.2%.

Note that, one way of gauging the government's financial health is by looking at the fiscal deficit as a percentage of GDP.

The good news is that this number has been declining. It has been in line with the government's stated aim of bringing the fiscal deficit down. Now, how this pans out going forward remains to be seen.

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