After opening the day deep in the red, Indian share markets slowly recovered most of their losses and ended on a flat note.

Benchmark indices erased most of the losses as buying returned in index heavyweight stocks including ITC, HDFC, and Bajaj twins.

In early trade, Indian markets slipped as auto and banking stocks witnessed selling, as sentiment dampened after a shaky start in Asian share markets.

Further, export duty hike on fuels dented shares of India's most valuable company Reliance and import duty on gold hurt shares of Titan.

At the closing bell, the BSE Sensex stood lower by 111 points (down 0.1%).

Meanwhile, the NSE Nifty closed lower by 28 points (down 0.2%).

ITC and Bajaj Finance were among the top gainers today.

Reliance and Power Grid, on the other hand, were among the top losers today.

The SGX Nifty was trading at 15,767, up by 46 points, at the time of writing.

The BSE MidCap index and the BSE SmallCap index ended higher by 0.7% and 0.1%, respectively.

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

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

Shares of Voltamp Transformers and Insecticides India hit their 52-week highs today.

HDFC Life ended 3% higher after falling for the past consecutive sessions. HDFC Life's share price is falling lately owing to a slowdown in new business premium.

Rice stocks in India are in focus lately after reports suggested India's rice stock could be barely over the buffer norms come 1 October.

Asian stock markets ended on a negative note today. The Hang Seng and the Shanghai Composite ended the day down by 0.6% and 0.3%, respectively. The Nikkei ended lower by 1.7%.

US stock futures are trading on a negative note today with Dow Futures trading down by 29 points.

The rupee is trading at 79.02 against the US$.

Gold prices for the latest contract on MCX are trading up by 2.5% at Rs 51,764 per 10 grams.

In news from the automobile sector, Ashok Leyland's share price was among the top buzzing stocks today.

Ashok Leyland's total commercial vehicle (CV) sales jumped 125% to 14,531 units in June 2022 from 6,448 units sold in June 2021.

Sequentially, the company's total CV sales rose 9.5% from 13,273 units sold in May 2022.

While the total sales of medium & heavy commercial vehicles (M&HCV) surged 238% to 9,354 units, sales of light commercial vehicles (LCVs) climbed 41% to 5,177 units in June 2022 over June 2021.

Ashok Leyland is the flagship company of the Hinduja Group and is among the largest manufacturer of commercial vehicles in India.

It is also among the biggest manufacturers of buses and trucks globally.

In other news from the auto space, Maruti Suzuki reported a 5.7% increase in total wholesales at 1,55,857 units in June. The company had dispatched 1,47,368 units to dealers in June 2021.

Last month, the company's domestic sales increased 1.28 percent to 1,32,024 units, as against 1,30,348 units in June 2021.

The company's exports jumped to 23,833 units last month, against 17,020 vehicles in the corresponding month last year.

Maruti Suzuki's share price ended the day down by 0.9%.

Moving on to news from the energy space, Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) will invest over Rs 7.4 bn to raise the capacity of its oldest oil refinery at Digboi in Assam.

The state-owned company said its board has approved raising Digboi refinery capacity from 0.65 million tonnes per annum to 1 million tonnes along with associated facilities.

The project is expected to be commissioned by October 2025 and the capacity expansion would improve the profitability of the Digboi refinery.

Digboi refinery was commissioned in December 1901 and is India's oldest operating refinery and one of the oldest operating refineries in the world.

IOC is India's largest oil refining and fuel marketing company. It owns and operates 10 oil refineries with a cumulative capacity of 80.55 million tonnes per annum. This makes up for about 32% of India's oil refining capacity of about 250 million tonnes.

Note that IOC shares were under pressure of late owing to marketing margin pressure. Marketing margin is the difference between the price of the raw material purchased to the finished goods price.

In the fourth quarter of 2022, the marketing margin for IOC was down Rs 2 per liter and it widened the company's loss to Rs 8.6 per liter.

This fall in the margin-left shares of IOC with a negative impact.