Union Budget 2018: Sensex erases gains as govt plans to tax equities

Indian equity markets were trading flat when Finance Minister, Arun Jaitley stepped up to the podium to begin presenting the Union Budget for FY19. A few minutes into his speech and Dalal Street cheered with Sensex rising over 200 points.

At 1123 hours, Sensex rose 221.09 points or 0.61% at 36,186.11 points while the bigger scrip Nifty 50 was up 65.05 points or 0.59% to trade at 11,092.75 points.

However, as the government announced its plan to tax long term capital gains, the benchmark indices tanked.

BSE Sensex dropped 256.69 points, or 0.71%, to 35,708.33, while the Nifty 50 rose 12.90 points, or 0.12%, to 11,014.80.

The benchmark indices opened in green on Thursday. Sensex opened at 36,127.20 and Nifty stood at 11,067.25.

The Nifty Pharma index was trading 0.84% down at 9,305 points at 1025 hours. Auto and banking stocks rose on BSE Sensex while telecom shares and metal stocks slipped intraday.

Finance Minister, Arun Jaitley started his Union Budget speech for the financial year 2018-19 in Parliament at 11:00 IST today.

On recapitalisation of banks, Jaitley said they have a greater ability to support GDP and have a greater capacity for growth.

FM Jaitley began his speech by saying India will soon become the fifth largest economy in the world.

GDP growth is seen at 7.2-7.5% by the NDA government in FY19.

Top gainer on the smaller 30-scrip index was Avanti Feeds that rose 12.17% to Rs 2,494.60. While the top loser on the index was Vakrangee Limited that was down 19.99% to trade at Rs 292.30 per share.

Here are the gainers and losers on BSE Sensex at intraday.