Indian share markets witnessed most of the selling pressure during closing hours and ended their trading session marginally lower. Barring IT sector and realty sector, all sectoral indices ended on a negative note with oil & gas stocks, capital goods stocks, and energy stocks losing the most.

At the closing bell, the BSE Sensex stood lower by 120 points (down 0.3%) and the NSE Nifty closed down by 38 points (down 0.4%). The BSE Mid Cap index ended the day down 0.5% and the BSE Small Cap index ended the day down by 0.4%.

The rupee was trading at 70.75 against the US$.

Asian stock markets finished on a posiitive note. As of the most recent closing prices, the Hang Seng was up 1.2% and the Shanghai Composite was up by 1.9%. The Nikkei 225 was up 1.4%.

In the latest developments from the results corner, Sun Pharma share price was in focus today after the company reported its net profit at Rs 12.4 billion in the third quarter ended December 2018.

The company posted a net profit of Rs 3.2 billion during the previous year's period.

Revenues from operations gained 17% to Rs 79.3 billion as compared to last year's Rs 67.8 billion.

The EBITDA margin of the company stood at 27.8%. The US sales grew by 8% on a quarter-on-quarter (QoQ) basis to US$ 370 million, led by market-share gains in generic products.

Sales in the US were $362 million for the quarter, a growth of 10% over the same period last year and accounted for 34% of total sales.

Reportedly, the numbers were higher from the estimates by a wide margin helped by a strong recovery of US generics business.

Sun Pharma in the US has 441 Abbreviated New Drug Applications (ANDAs) approved, while filings for 564 ANDAs await USFDA nod, including 15 tentative approvals. For the quarter, 5 ANDAs were filed and 10 approvals were received.

Sun Pharma share price ended the day down by 2%.

To know more about the company you can read Sun Pharma's Latest Result Analysis on our website.

In another news, Coal India share price was also in focus today as the company reported its net profit at Rs 54.7 billion for third quarter ended December 31, 2018 as compared to Rs 1.2 billion for the same quarter in the previous year.

Total income of the company reported over 16-fold jump at Rs 56.9 billion for Q3FY19 as compared Rs 3.5 billion for the corresponding quarter previous year.

On the consolidated basis, the company has reported a rise of 50.1% in its net profit at Rs 45.7 billion for the quarter under review as compared to Rs 30.4 billion for the same quarter in the previous year.

Recently, the company had announced that it would raise about Rs 10.6 billion by selling shares to its subsidiaries MCL (Mahanadi Coalfields Limited), SECL (South Eastern Coalfields Limited) and NCL (Northern Coalfields Limited).

This will be the company's second buyback in two years. Coal India had gone for a buyback in 2017, when the government raised about 26.4 billion from the buyback.

Ankit Shah has shared the buyback update of the company. You can read it here.

Speaking of buybacks, the number of buyback offers in 2017-18 were at an all-time high. Never, in the last two decades, had Indian markets seen fifty-nine companies announcing buyback plans.

But what is truly surprising is that unlike in the past, the buybacks this time seem skewed in favour of short term investors rather than long term ones.

Who Benefits from Such Buybacks?

Here's what Tanushree Banerjee, Co-head of Research at Equitymaster, wrote about it in The 5 Minute WrapUp...

• Look at the history of buybacks since 2002. Logically promoters should offer to buyback shares at a premium when the stock is undervalued. And this logic held true until recently. The number of buybacks peaked when market valuations were low. And in times of peak valuations (like 2007 and 2011), promoters refrained from doing so.
  
  But not this time. The trend of rising buybacks in the last two years, resembles the sentiment of a momentum investor. The appetite to buy shares kept rising with the rising markets. And the latest buybacks of stocks like TCSand MOIL, came at a time, when neither the broader index (Sensex) nor the stocks themselves, are undervalued.

At Equitymaster, we believe, as a shareholder in cash rich companies, you should not only be wary of expensive buybacks. But if possible use it to your advantage to rake in some cash.

As per Rahul Shah, co-head of Research, investors should not assume buybacks are always good. Here's an excerpt of what he wrote in one of the editions of The 5 Minute Wrapup:

• The reason behind the buyback must be investigated. At the end of the day, an increase in earnings should be more a function of the inherent robustness of the business, as that's what will help it continue to grow at a healthy pace.

The topic also brings us to ask: Do buy-backs offer an arbitrage opportunity for retail investors? Ankit Shah has answered this question in one of the editions of Equitymaster Insider. You can access the issue here (requires subscription).

Moving on to the news from the banking sector, Axis bank share price witnessed selling pressure today. The offer for sale (OFS) by the bank was subscribed over 2.5 times by retail investors so far.

According to an article in The Economic Times, the strong response by small investors came a day after the issue got an overwhelming response from non-retail investors in the previous session.

Here's an excerpt from the article:

• The issue had retail received bids for 1.98 crore shares, which was 2.58 times the total size of 77.09 lakh shares. The portion for retail category was fixed at 10%.
  
  On Tuesday, the quota set for non-retail investors was subscribed 2.56 times wherein, with the portion receiving non-retail bids for 11.69 crore shares against the total size of 4.56 crore shares.

With this, the Centre is seeking to raise around Rs 53.2 billion by selling its 3% stake in the private lender, held through the Specified Undertaking of the Unit Trust of India (SUUTI).

Axis bank share price ended the day down by 1.1%.

Market participants were also tracking Godrej Industries share price, Repco Home Finance share price, Ruchi Soya share price, and Talwarkars Better Value Fitness share price as these companies announced their quarterly earnings today.

You can also read our recently released Q3FY19 results of other companies here: Reliance Industries, Infosys, TCS, Trident, HDFC bank, Maruti Suzuki, Tata Motors, Tata Steel, Aurobindo Pharma, MRF, Gillette, Sun Pharma.