Mid Session

The domestic equity benchmarks reversed losses and traded with minor gains in the afternoon trade. The Nifty traded above the 15,800 level. Bank, financial services and metal stocks were in the green while realty, metal and auto stocks corrected. Trading is likely to remain volatile during the day due to expiry of weekly and monthly index options on the NSE.

At 13:30 IST, the barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex, was up 158.53 points or 0.30% to 53,185.50. The Nifty 50 index gained 26.30 points or 0.17% to 15,825.40.

In the broader market, the S&P BSE Mid-Cap index fell 0.45% while the S&P BSE Small-Cap index shed 0.32%.

The market breadth was negative. On the BSE, 1,433 shares rose and 1,742 shares fell. A total of 144 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.

Gainers & Losers:

HDFC Life Insurance Company (up 2.24%), Axis Bank (up 1.79%), State Bank of India (up 1.51%), Kotak Mahindra Bank (up 1.34%) and SBI Life Insurance Company (up 0.99%) were major Nifty gainers.

Cipla (down 3.22%), Eicher Motors (down 2.97%), Coal India (down 2.78%), ONGC (down 2.72%) and JSW Steel (down 2.04%) were majority Nifty losers.

Global Markets:

European shares slipped across the board while most of the Asian stocks declined on Thursday as investors weighed signs of gradual improvement in China's economy and comments from central bank chiefs on tackling persistent price pressures.

European stocks edged lower as market sentiment remains gloomy, there's no prospect of the war in Ukraine ending anytime soon and inflationary pressures continue to build. Aggressive rate hikes by central bank further dampened the investor sentiment, there are growing fears of a global slowdown.

Investors will be digesting the latest developments from the NATO summit in Madrid. NATO leaders have invited Sweden and Finland to join the alliance after Turkey withdrew its objections to the new members and the organization reiterated its support for Ukraine as well as outlined its plans to revamp its deterrence and defense strategy.

In economic news, China's official manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index for June was at 50.2.

Stock indexes on Wall Street ended mostly lower in the overnight session after another choppy day of trading.

On Wednesday, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland President Loretta Mester said she will advocate for a 75 basis point hike to interest rates at the central bank's July meeting if economic conditions remain the same by then.

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