Indian share markets witnessed volatile trading activity throughout the day today and ended marginally higher.

Benchmark indices bucked the weak Asian trend and rose today as the Assembly elections' euphoria extended into a second day.

However, developments around the Ukrainian war, commodity prices, and the US inflation data kept the markets volatile throughout the day.

The Sensex hit a high of 55,834 in early deals but eased off to end at 55,550.

At the closing bell, the BSE Sensex stood higher by 86 points (up 0.2%).

Meanwhile, the NSE Nifty closed higher by 36 points (up 0.2%).

Cipla and Sun Pharma were among the top gainers today.

Nestle India and Maruti Suzuki, on the other hand, were among the top losers today.

The SGX Nifty was trading at 16,634, up by 64 points, at the time of writing.

The BSE MidCap index and the BSE SmallCap index ended up by 0.4% and 0.8%, respectively.

Sectoral indices ended on a positive note with stocks in the healthcare sector, oil & gas sector, and consumer durables sector witnessing most of the buying interest.

Auto stocks, on the other hand, witnessed selling pressure.

Shares of Cipla and Balrampur Chini hit their respective 52-week highs today.

Asian stock markets ended on a mixed note today.

The Hang Seng ended down by 1.6%, while the Shanghai Composite ended up by 0.4%. The Nikkei ended down by 2.1% in today's session.

US stock futures are trading on a positive note today with the Dow Futures trading up by 104 points.

The rupee is trading at 76.59 against the US$.

Gold prices for the latest contract on MCX are trading down by 0.3% at Rs 53,056 per 10 grams.

In news from the engineering sector, BGR Energy Systems was among the top buzzing stocks today.

BGR Energy Systems was locked in a 10% upper circuit at Rs 84.5 after the Madras High Court reinstated the order worth Rs 44.4 bn awarded to the company by Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation (TANGEDCO).

In April 2021, TANGEDCO had canceled the letter of intent (LoI) regarding the award of contract to BGR Energy Systems for the execution of the 1X660 MW Supercritical Ennore Thermal Power Station (ETPS) expansion project.

The company had moved the High Court of Madras challenging the said cancellation.

The company has received an amendment to the LOI on 9 March 2022 issued by TANGEDCO for reinstatement of the contract for the 1X660 MW Supercritical ETPS expansion project.

The value of the contract of Rs 44.4 bn remains unchanged and the 'zero-date' for commencement of the contract is revised to 9 March 2022.

BGR Energy Systems operates in the utility industry, offering services ranging from product manufacturing to project execution. The company operates in two segments: capital goods and construction and engineering procurement construction contracts.

BGR Energy Systems' share price ended the day up by 10% on the BSE.

Speaking of the current stock market scenario, note that the BSE smallcap index has surged more than 200% since the crash in March 2020.

Despite the index is up more than two times, Richa Agarwal, lead Smallcap Analyst at Equitymaster, believes smallcap stocks are set for a massive up move in 2022 and beyond.

Here's why...

The Smallcap to Sensex ratio, a metric referred to get a sense of relative valuations, currently stands at 0.48 times. To be sure, this is higher than a median of 0.43 times.

And yet, it's the lowest of all the peaks in the small caps so far. In the last cycle which peaked in January 2018, when the ratio touched 0.49, the peak was still 9 months away.

Moving on to news from the banking sector...

ICICI Bank to Acquire 5% Stake in NARCL

ICICI Bank today announced that the private lender has signed an agreement on 10 March 2022 for investment in the National Asset Reconstruction Company (NARCL). NARCL is an asset reconstruction company, which was incorporated on 7 July 2021.

The bank will acquire up to 5% equity holding in NARCL with total cash consideration of up to Rs 1.4 bn in tranches.

Equity investment would be in tranches with the first tranche of equity investment of Rs 704.5 m expected to be completed by 31 March 2022, ICICI Bank announced in an exchange filing today.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had in her Budget 2021 speech announced the creation of NARCL or a bad bank to resolve large cases of stress.

NARCL has been set up by banks to aggregate and consolidates stressed assets for their subsequent resolution. Public sector banks (PSBs) will maintain about 51% ownership in NARCL.

A bad bank is a corporate entity that alienates illiquid and risky assets held by banks and financial institutions or a group of banks.

It is created to help banks clear their balance sheets by transferring their bad loans so that the banks can focus on their core business of taking deposits and lending money.

In January this year, India's proposed bad bank received all regulatory approvals, and lenders plan to transfer at least Rs 500 bn of toxic assets to it by 31 March 2022, State Bank of India (SBI) chairman Dinesh Khara had said.

ICICI Bank's share price ended the day up by 0.2% on the BSE.