Indian share markets ended on a strong note today led by gains in oil producers and refiners following the government's move to slash windfall taxes on crude and fuel exports.

Benchmark indices ended on a positive note for the third consecutive day.

High volatility in the market is likely to continue in the near term with erratic action from FIIs and sustained buying on dips by retail investors.

At the closing bell, the BSE Sensex stood higher by 630 points (up 1.2%).

Meanwhile, the NSE Nifty closed higher by 180 points (up 1.1%).

HCL Tech, TCS, and Tech Mahindra were among the top gainers today.

Kotak Mahindra Bank, Sun Pharma, and M&M, on the other hand, were among the top losers today.

The SGX Nifty was trading at 16,498, up by 160 points, at the time of writing.

The broader markets ended in the green. The BSE MidCap index ended higher by 0.3% and the BSE SmallCap index ended higher by 0.4%.

Sectoral indices ended on a mixed note today with stocks in the IT sector, FMCG sector, and metal sector, witnessing most of the buying.

On the other hand, stocks in the auto sector, telecom sector, and realty sector witnessed selling.

Shares of Blue Dart Express and Bajaj Auto hit their 52-week highs today.

The rupee is trading at 79.94 against the US$.

The rupee has been falling against the US$ for quite some time now.

Gold prices for the latest contract on MCX are trading up by 0.2% at Rs 50,400 per 10 grams.

Meanwhile, silver prices for the latest contract on MCX are trading up by 0.3% at Rs 55,881 per 1 kg.

Of late, gold prices are falling while silver isn't far behind. Silver price is also falling as industrial demand for silver is under pressure while a stronger US dollar is adding to worries.

Speaking of stock markets, 2022 will be marked in history as the year of the biggest fall in IT stocks. Any company, whether it was fundamentally good or sound, all were taken to the cleaners in 2022.

However, the scenario started changing recently as IT stocks finally see a rise after the log fall. But is this it? Or this is just a little rise before they start falling again?
 

Here are four factors behind today's stock market rally:

Positive global cues: Wall Street saw its best day in more than three weeks, as many companies reported better-than-expected corporate earnings.

Asian share markets caught up to the US cues and ended on a strong note.

The Nikkei ended the day up by 2.7%. While the Shanghai Composite ended higher by 0.8% and the Hang Seng jumped by 1.1%.

Weakness observed in Dollar: The US dollar fell on Wednesday as the euro extended its overnight bounce on relief that Europe might be able to avoid the worst fears concerning energy shortages.

The dollar index, which tracks the movement of the dollar against a basket of six major world currencies, edged 0.14% to 106.53.

FPIs turn net buyers: Provisional data showed foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) were buyers of domestic stocks on Tuesday to the tune of Rs 9.8 bn.

Did you know FIIs have sold shares worth over US$ 33 bn since April 2021?

They have been selling Indian shares for ten months consecutively now. So much so that their holding in NSE 500 companies dropped to a 3-year low in March 2022.

Since April 2021, FIIs have been sellers in every month except three and they have sold Indian shares worth over US$ 33 bn.

To put things in perspective, the recent selling pressure has more than halved the Rs 4.4 tn the foreign investors pumped into the domestic secondary market between 2010 and 2020.

However, the pace of FPI selling has reduced by late.

While FIIs have been selling Indian shares big time, here's where they have invested.

Sectoral Outlook: The energy sector was in focus today.

The government cut the windfall tax on diesel and aviation fuel shipments by Rs 2 a liter and scrapped completely a Rs 6 per liter levy on gasoline exports.

The government also cut the tax on domestically produced crude by 27% to Rs 17,000 per tonne.

Refinery stocks rallied post the announcement. Reliance Industries ended 2.4% higher while ONGC ended 4% higher on the BSE today.

It remains to be seen whether we will see a V-shaped recovery, or the recovery will be slow and steady spanning several months.

In news from the FMCG sector, ITC plans on aggressively expanding its FMCG portfolio to overseas markets.

Cigarettes-to-hotels conglomerate ITC has been strengthening its FMCG portfolio at home on the back of popular brands like Aashirvaad, Sunfeast, Bingo, and Yippee.

The company has gone big on its FMCG business in recent years by launching new products, expanding distribution, and entering new categories.

Despite the challenging environment of the last two years, it clocked a 25% growth in its FMCG business and reached a turnover of nearly Rs 160 bn in the financial year 2022.

Making the announcement, chairman and managing director, Sanjiv Puri said:

ITC has established distribution arrangements abroad enabling appreciable progress of exports of ITC's brands to over 60 countries.

Over time, such exports will make a substantial contribution to the growth of your company's value-added FMCG portfolio.

Despite the unprecedented inflationary headwinds, the company has sustained EBITDA margins last year and improved margins by 650 basis points over the last five years.

ITC launched 110 products in the FMCG segment in the financial year 2022.

ITC's share price ended 1.2% higher on the BSE today.

Moving on to stock-specific news, Grasim industries were among the top buzzing stock today.

Birla Group's flagship company Grasim Industries plans to enter the B2B e-commerce platform for the building materials segment with an investment of around Rs 20 bn over the next five years.

The platform will primarily focus on micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in the building materials segment, with the potential to further extend to other relevant categories.

Grasim Industries said that the key value proposition would be an integrated procurement solution, including on-time delivery and a superior product range at competitive pricing.

This platform will be operated by a newly recruited leadership team from the digital ecosystem.

In May, Grasim announced the doubling of its CAPEX plans for its paints foray to Rs 100 bn.

Grasim Industries' share price ended 0.1% higher on the BSE today.

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