will impact stock prices in 2022the stand out proposal in the budget has undoubtedly been the focus on increasing capital expenditure materially the government realizes that it needs to do the heavy lifting to support the economy by investing in infrastructure secondly the fm maintained the status quo on taxation especially on direct taxes as they say if it aint broke dont fix it given that fy22 has witnessed massive increase in tax revenues through direct tax as well as on the gst collections front lastly many small but significant measures were taken but particularly measures around renewables digital economy extension of eclgs scheme and correcting many input duty imports were positive stepsthe sectors that will gain most from the budget and the ones that will be hurtinfrastructure is a clear winner companies linked to construction and affordable real estate stand to benefit from the heightened focus in this area its a positive for the banking industry which gets more breathing time with extension in eclgs scheme to march 2023 demand for plastic pipes will rise with a 20 rise in allocation for jal jeevan mission on the back of big allocations in previous budgets as well cuts in import duties on raw materials will help the jewellery industry and the petroleum refining sector electric vehicles would have probably expected more than just an announcement around battery swapping the tobacco industry particularly itc in the listed space will breathe a sigh of relief with no additional tax imposition the additional allocation of rs 190 billion to the pli scheme will support domestic manufacturing and capital goods industrya big opportunity that the budget missed in terms of encouraging and rewarding retail investors in equity marketsno negative in itself is a big positive for investors the budget has rightly supported growth and tabled many enablers for several industries cap on surcharge for long term capital gains at 15 is a mild positive for retail investors bringing crypto trading under the tax net is a good move to bring it under the formal system as well as dissuade retail from speculative assets this makes equities more attractive than cryptocurrency ceteris paribus no change in the direct taxation structure is also a big positivewith or without the budget in the picture do you think markets will reward the investors in 2022 the way it did in the past three yearseven prior to the budget the stock market looked ripe to go up in 2022 driven by growing trend of unorganized to organized accelerated digital supercycle strong corporate balance sheets and expectation of benign cost of capital for a long period with a budget thats focusing on growth especially with infra spending and higher overall capex expenditure it has offered a solid ground to equities to rally we expect indian equities to close 2022 at a level higher than 2021