Indian share markets witnessed heavy selling pressure today and ended deep in the red, tracking weak global cues.

Selling pressure was seen after reports stated that some European countries are contemplating to reimpose lockdown measures as the Covid-19 cases see a spike.

As per media reports, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was pondering the second lockdown in Britain while Spain and other European countries were witnessing fresh restrictions due to the coronavirus pandemic.

At the closing bell, the BSE Sensex stood lower by 812 points. Meanwhile, the NSE Nifty ended down by 254 points.

IndusInd Bank was the top loser in NSE. Meanwhile, the top gainers in NSE today include Infosys and TCS.

SGX Nifty was trading at 11,255, down by 264 points, at the time of writing.

Midcap and smallcap stocks witnessed huge selling pressure today. The BSE Mid Cap index ended down by 3.4%. The BSE Small Cap index tumbled 3.6%.

On the sectoral front, telecom stocks and realty stocks were among the hardest hit. Banking stocks also witnessed huge selling as FinCEN leak named Indian banks for suspicious transactions.

Asian stock markets ended deep in the red. As of the most recent closing prices, the Hang Seng was down 2.1% and the Shanghai Composite stood lower by 0.6%. The Nikkei ended up by 0.2%.

European stock markets opened lower today, hit by worries about a surge in coronavirus cases across the continent.

US stock futures are trading deep in the red indicating a gap-down opening for Wall Street indices.

Nasdaq Futures are trading down by 202 points (down 1.9%), while Dow Futures are trading down by 190 points (down 0.7%).

The rupee is trading at 73.39 against the US$.

Gold prices are trading down by 1.1% at Rs 51,140 per 10 grams.

Despite higher global rates, domestic gold and silver prices edged lower today.

Selling pressure was seen as traders booked profits while waiting for clarity on the US Fed policy.

In the previous session, gold had risen 0.5% while silver had edged 0.2% lower.

Gold prices in India have remained choppy in recent weeks after hitting a record high of over Rs 56,000 last month.

Investors are now looking forward to clues on Fed's monetary policy as a slew of policymakers are due to make public speeches, including Chairman Jerome Powell, who will appear before Congressional committees later this week.

Speaking of the precious yellow metal, how lucrative has gold been as a long-term investment in India?

The chart below shows the annual returns on gold over the last 15 years...

As you can see, barring just two years - 2013 and 2015, gold has delivered positive returns in 13 of the last 15 years.

Moving on to stock-specific news...

Birla Corporation was among the top buzzing stocks today.

Shares of the company dipped 9% after the Calcutta High Court (HC) on Friday restrained Harsh Vardhan Lodha from holding any office in M P Birla group entities.

The stock of cement & cement products company recorded its sharpest intra-day fall since March 23, 2020, when it had tanked 20% on the BSE.

The company said that it is in the process of reviewing the said order of the Hon'ble High Court. Further material development, if any, in the matter will be intimated to the exchanges.

These directions mean that Harsh Vardhan Lodha immediately ceases to hold all positions in the M P Birla group, including as director in the firms and other positions in the trusts and societies of the M P Birla group.

Birla Corporation's share price ended the day down by 8.2%.

Moving on, in the latest developments from the IPO space, Route Mobile share price made a strong debut at the bourses with its shares listing at Rs 717, 105% higher against its issue price of Rs 350 per share.

The Rs 6-billion initial public offering (IPO) of Route Mobile had received a strong response from all categories of investors. The IPO was subscribed 73.3 times and received bids for 892 million shares against the offered size of over 12.2 million equity shares, data available on the exchanges showed.

In other news, the IPO of Chemcon Speciality Chemicals received a strong response on the very first day of bidding itself. The IPO was subscribed to 3.3 times at the time of writing.

Meanwhile, the Rs 22.6-billion public offer of Computer Age Management Services (CAMS) was subscribed 49.5% at the time of writing, on the first day of the issue.

The IPO received bids for 6.3million equity shares against an offer size of over 12.8 million equity shares (excluding anchor book).

The company has a fixed price band at Rs 1,229-1,230 per share for its maiden public issue which will remain open till September 23.

The portion set aside for retail investors witnessed 79.4% subscription and the non-institutional investors segment saw 13.6% subscription so far, while the qualified institutional buyers' portion has subscribed 0.1%.

The public issue consists an offer for sale of 1,82,46,600 equity shares by NSE Investments, the subsidiary of the National Stock Exchange which has been asked by the market regulator to divest its entire stake in CAMS in the current IPO.

To know more about the company, you can read our note on the IPO here: CAMS IPO: Should You Apply? (requires subscription).

Chemcon Speciality Chemicals, the smallest IPO among the three IPOs hitting the market this week has been a big draw among grey market investors, and the stock is enjoying a premium of 75%. CAMS, FY21's biggest IPO so far, is seeing its shares trade at 28% premium.

While the grey market premium of Chemcon stood at Rs 250-255, CAMS's is at Rs 342-345.

How the above IPOs sail through remains to be seen. Meanwhile, we will keep you updated on the latest developments from this space. Stay tuned.