SENSEX holds 700 points gain; auto stocks, HUL, Vodafone Idea among buzzing stocks

The Indian equity benchmarks came off intraday highs but were holding on to strong gains in noon deals. The SENSEX rose as much as 1,168 points and NIFTY50 surpassed its important psychological level of 25,000 buoyed by plans for big bang reforms in the GST regime by Diwali and S&P upgrading India's sovereign credit rating. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday said the Centre has circulated the draft of the next-generation GST reforms among states and sought their cooperation to implement the proposal before Diwali.

As of 12:20 pm, the SENSEX was up 723 points at 81,320 and NIFTY50 index advanced 315 points to 24,946.

Here are buzzing stocks in Monday's session:

Presently, automobiles are taxed at 28%, which is the highest GST slab. A compensation cess, ranging from 1% to 22%, is levied on top of this rate, depending on the type of vehicle.

The total tax incidence on cars, depending on engine capacity and length, ranges from 29% for small petrol cars to 50% for SUVs.

Vodafone Idea reported that its net loss in the first quarter of current financial year (Q1FY26) widened to ₹6,608 crore from loss of ₹6,432 crore in the same period last year. On a sequential basis, however, its loss narrowed from ₹7,166 crore in the previous quarter.

Vodafone Idea's revenue from operations rose 5% annually in April-June period to ₹11,008 crore from ₹10,487 crore in the year-ago period.

During the quarter, Vodafone Idea launched 5G services in 22 cities across 13 circles. The company's average revenue per user (ARPU), a key metric of telecom firm's profitability, improved to ₹177 per month as against ₹154 in Q1FY25.

From the ramparts of the historic Red Fort, PM Modi announced that the GST rates will be lowered by Diwali, bringing down prices of everyday use items, as his government looks to reform the eight-year-old tax regime that has been plagued by litigation and evasions.

The BSE Fast Moving Consumer Goods index was trading at 20,471.82, up 330.32 points, or 1.64%. On the NSE, the NIFTY FMCG index was trading at 55,640.35, up 984.05 points, or 1.80%.

Among individual names, Nestle (India) was the biggest gainer on the BSE FMCG index. The stock was trading over 6.5% higher at ₹1,161.15 on the BSE. The top contributors to the index were HUL, Nestlé India, Britannia, and Tata Consumer Products (TCPL).

Shares of the country's largest cigarette maker ITC fell as much as 0.65%, Marlboro cigarette maker Godfrey Philips declined as much as 5.24% to hit an intraday low of ₹9,648 and shares of VST Industries declined as much as 1%.