Mumbai: Indian equity markets are on a high buoyed by better-than-expected quarterly earnings reported by companies and a cut in interest rates. The Sensex has gained over 2200 points in the past 10 trading sessions, and hopes are high that if the market momentum continues at the current pace, the Sensex could easily surge past 30,000 before the budget, which will be presented to parliament on February 28.
The top-30 Sensex is now close to 29,403 for the first time ever and the broader 50-share Nifty is at a record high of 8,869.
"Traders are aggressively taking positions in the February series on expectations markets will scale to newer highs with Budget being the lead trigger," said Chandan Taparia, derivative analyst at Anand Rathi Securities.
Meanwhile, India's foreign exchange reserves leapt to a record $322.14 billion in the week ended January 16, reflecting strong central bank purchases as foreign inflows climbed strongly, official data released on Friday showed.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who is scheduled to present the Budget in Lok Sabha on February 28, is tipped to unveil the government's thrust on investment and to make the country as a manufacturing hub. The budget is also likely to set the ball rolling for more reductions in interest rates by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), which has recently reduced rates for the first time in more than a year citing benign inflation expectations.
Earlier, the finance minister has hinted at not raising tax rates and providing incentives for manufacturing in the coming Budget while asserting that "structural changes" will have to be made to get the economy to 8-9 per cent growth. Confident of meeting the fiscal deficit target of 4.1 per cent of the GDP for the current fiscal, Jaitley expressed confidence that India was close to the point when investment will pick up as there are a large number of investors who are waiting to come in.
"They only want to be doubly sure about the credibility of the decision making process and the stability of the policies," he had said, adding, "Even though the revenues have been challenging due to slow manufacturing industry, now, it is turning around and it looks like we will be able to meet our fiscal targets."
Revenue collections which were affected due to low manufacturing in the last 2-3 years are also turning around. Forex reserves are good and Current Account Deficit (CAD) position is much better, he added.
Current account deficit stood at $10.1 billion or 2.1 per cent of GDP in July-September quarter of this fiscal, up from 1.2 per cent during the year ago period due to rising gold imports.
The current account deficit (CAD) is the net difference between inflows and outflows of foreign currencies.
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