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

Mixed global cues kept the benchmark indices volatile as investors digested key updates from both the Bank of England and the European Central Bank.

The Bank of England on Thursday imposed back-to-back interest rate hikes for the first time since 2004 and began the process of quantitative tightening.

While, the European Central Bank renewed its pledge to withdraw pandemic stimulus only gradually, even after a record inflation reading fed market expectations for a first interest-rate hike in more than a decade this year.

At the closing bell, the BSE Sensex stood lower by 143 points (down 0.2%).

Meanwhile, the NSE Nifty closed lower by 44 points (down 0.3%).

Hindalco and ONGC were among the top gainers today.

Hero MotoCorp and SBI, on the other hand, were among the top losers today.

Photo by Naveed Ahmed on Unsplash

The SGX Nifty was trading at 17,488, down by 31 points, at the time of writing.

The BSE Mid Cap index and the BSE Small Cap index ended down by 0.7% and 0.5%, respectively.

Sectoral indices ended on a mixed note with stocks in the realty sector, auto sector and energy sector witnessing most of the selling pressure.

Metal stocks, on the other hand, witnessed buying interest.

Shares of Deepak Fertilisers and VRL Logistics hit their respective 52-week highs today.

Asian stock markets ended on a positive note today.

The Hang Seng ended up by 3.2%, while the Nikkei ended up by 0.7% in today's session.

US stock futures are trading on a positive note today with the Dow Futures trading up by 75 points.

The rupee is trading at 74.70 against the US$.

Gold prices for the latest contract on MCX are trading up by 0.4% at Rs 48,085 per 10 grams.

In news from the textiles sector, Welspun India was among the top buzzing stocks today.

Home textile major Welspun India reported a 25% decline in consolidated net profit at Rs 1.3 bn for the third quarter ended December 2021.

The company had posted a consolidated net profit of Rs 1.7 bn in the same quarter last fiscal.

Consolidated total income in the third quarter stood at Rs 24.4 bn, compared to Rs 20.5 bn in the same period last fiscal.

Total expenses were higher at Rs 22.3 bn against Rs 18 bn in the year-ago quarter.

Welspun Group Chairman B K Goenka said, 'In quarter three, we witnessed further strong performance in home textile with 19% growth year on year (YoY) and the home textile segment alone is poised to cross US$1 bn revenues in this fiscal year.

However, he said increasing input costs, rising energy prices and global logistics issues continued to weigh on the margin front.

'At Welspun, we are making our best possible efforts to control these adversities and counter it through our strong in-house manufacturing capabilities, well-recognized branding, and innovative product offerings,' Goenka added.

Stating that the global textile industry is going through a transformation phase both in demand and supply side, he said the de-risking strategy of shift in sourcing goods from more than one country is anticipated to benefit major industry players.

Welspun India share price ended the day down by 6.1% on the BSE.

Moving on to news from the oil & gas sector...

Government Will Not Rush into Selling BPCL

India will not rush into selling the country's second-biggest state refiner if it ends up with a lone suitor, according to the top bureaucrat overseeing asset sales.

'We need competitive bids, we can't do it with a single bid,' Tuhin Kanta Pandey, secretary in the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DPIIT), said in an interview. 'In the expressions of interest, we have listed the people, multiple people. They must come in.'

So far three suitors - the Vedanta group, Apollo Global Management and I Squared Capital Advisors have expressed interest in buying the government's 53% stake in BPCL. But with a couple of them failing to rope in global investors amid waning interest in fossil fuels, only Vedanta appears to be left in the race with commodities tycoon Anil Agarwal showing willingness to spend about US$12 bn for the deal.

The other suitors 'have not yet indicated that they are walking out,' secretary Pandey said. 'So we have to hold on and let our transaction adviser keep persuading them,' he said.

While the government is keen to complete the sale, it doesn't want to rush through with the process and prefers to hand it over to a consortium with stronger technical and financial prowess.

The more time it takes to sell state assets such as BPCL, the longer the government's fiscal deficit will stay wide open - indications of which appeared by way of a lower-than-usual disinvestment target in the annual budget.

BPCL share price ended the day down by 0.1% on the BSE.

Speaking of PSUs, have a look at the chart below which shows the performance of BSE PSU index compared to BSE Sensex over the past few years.

(Click on image to enlarge)

As can be seen from the chart above, over the last decade, Rs 100 invested in BSE PSU index would have eroded to Rs 80, compared to almost 3x gains for the Sensex.