Indian share markets continued their sell-off and ended on a negative note yesterday.

At the closing bell yesterday, the BSE Sensex finished lower by 309 points, while, the NSE Nifty finished lower by 94 points. Meanwhile, the S&P BSE Midcap Index and S&P BSE Small Cap Index ended down by 0.1% & 0.4%, respectively.

Losses were seen across capital goods stocks and banking stocks.

Top Stocks in Focus Today

From the steel sector, market participants will be tracking Bhushan Steel share price today. JSW Steel, Tata Steel and a group of employees along with a private equity firm have submitted bids for the bankrupt Bhushan Steel. Bhushan Steel, which involves a Rs 440 billion default, is the biggest bankruptcy to go under the hammer thus far after the Reserve Bank of India and the government pushed banks to clean up the bad loan mess through the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC).

From the telecom sector, Bharti Airtel share price will be in focus today. The stock witnessed buying interest yesterday after the company said that Singapore Telecommunications Ltd (Singtel) will increase its stake in Bharti Airtel, by investing Rs 26.5 billion in parent Bharti Telecom.

From the automobile sector, market participants will be tracking Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) share price. This comes as the management of the company has shown interest in developing electric vehicles. As per the news, M&M has sought board approval to invest about Rs 8 billion to develop two new electric vehicle (EV) products and set up a research and development Centre for such vehicles.

GAIL (India) Limited share price will also be in focus today as the company yesterday announced that it placed order of Rs 4.4 billion for laying of approximately 350 kms of pipeline from Vijaipur (in the state of Madhya Pradesh) to Auraiya (in the state of Uttar Pradesh).

Service Sector Expands Fastest in 3 Months

India's services sector grew at the fastest pace in three months in January, with recovery in new business orders.

Signaling a further increase in activity at the start of 2018, the seasonally adjusted Nikkei Services Business Activity Index remained above the neutral mark of 50 in January, posting reading at 51.7, up from 50.9 in December.

Job creation accelerated to the second strongest in over six-and-a-half years. However, as firms struggled in receiving timely payments, the Goods and Services Tax (GST) continued to be a key constraint to businesses and the service sector remained a laggard relative to its manufacturing counterpart.

FPIs Infuse Rs 222 Billion in Indian Financial Markets in Jan.

In another set of data, Foreign Portfolio Investors (FPIs) infused a net amount of Rs 137.8 billion in equities and Rs 84.7 billion in debt in January, translating into net inflows of Rs 222.5 billion (US$3.5 billion).

The infusion follows an outflow of over Rs 35 billion by FPIs from the capital markets (equity and debt) in December.

The infusion was seen on the back of factors such as uptrend in global markets, promising economic numbers back home, better than expected third quarter earnings, among others.

Note that during 2017, FPIs put in a total Rs 2 trillion in Indian equity and debt markets.

India Planning to Regulate Cryptocurrency Exchanges

In the news from cryptocurrency space, as per a leading financial daily, India is planning to regulate cryptocurrency exchanges to keep track of transactions conducted there.

A finance ministry official said that a panel set by the government is going to look in to issues relating to the cryptocurrencies and is expected to submit its report in the current fiscal year, ending on March 31.

Cryptocurrencies are a curious bunch. They have no central bank backing and have not yet been regulated. Yet, these seem to have found favour among a large number of people, with demand growing every day. There are over 800 cryptocurrencies in existence today, with new ones being added to the list every day.

While the world of digital currencies is intriguing, it can get very confusing for the layman. Indeed, a lot of people are still skeptical about the currency's future. Our own government and the central bank certainly don't like Bitcoins.

And yet, it would probably not be wise to dismiss bitcoins and the blockchain industry entirely.

Indian Share Market Update: Top Gainers and Losers