Arvind Sanger, managing partner of Geosphere Capital Management, Udayan Mukherjee of CNBC-TV18, Atul Suri, CEO of Marathon Trends-PMS, Chetan Seth of Nomura and Ajay Srivastava, CEO of Dimensions Corporate Finance Services shared their views on measures announced by finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday.

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“It helps tremendously to have seen that tax rollback (reversal of FPI surcharge), as well as some incentives announced for the overall economy, is positive,” said Sanger.

“The problem is going to be in risk-off environment, these measures are positive but not completely determining factor but yes, it sounds like from everything we heard on Friday and everything that we have read since then, it looks like there is a definitive rollback of this inadvertent tax on foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) and if that does prove to be what we have heard so far and seen so far then that will be certainly positive for India in terms of fund flows,” he added.

Talking from market perspective, Udayan Mukherjee of CNBC-TV18 said, “We are already sitting on 3-4 percent rally today, it might extend a bit particularly if the finance minister follows up on her promises of some more measures during the weak particularly on housing, it is quite conceivable that we get back to 11,200 kinds of levels.”

“The key takeaway of the whole thing was that the finance minister said that - I want to keep the revenue target the same – that is a given to the market that nothing much is coming your way in terms of fiscal stimulus,” said Srivastava.

In such a scenario, he said, “That one statement tells the market that government is still gunning for the same revenues and that cannot happen without squeezing the arm of the corporate. So any semblance of what you thought was a great relief is gone because the government’s revenue target of the same has gone.”

On the auto sector front, Suri said, “I don’t have any autos in my portfolio. The reason is the trends; the longer-term trends in autos have broken like it’s with PSU banks; every 6 months you have this thing and they have a popup trade but 3 months later they are all making new lows. Therefore, the fact is I for one not betting on these hope trades. I am betting on where there are numbers, where there is quality and that is where the protection is.”

“The move from the FM, on Friday evening, which we think is quite positive at least from a sentiment perspective,” said Chetan Seth of Nomura. Seth added that remains to be seen how these measures can boost demand.

“In the short-term things might not change a lot but the finance ministry has shown us that they have positive intentions to make sure that the decline in India’s GDP is quickly arrested,” added Seth.

Speaking further about the announcements, he said, “They have also focused on softer reforms so the positive impact of these moves should come through in the next few quarters. However, I won’t say that these measures per se will boost demand but it shows that the government’s intentions are there, there is a resolve amongst the government authorities and hopefully, it should feed into positive broader sentiment.”