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

After two successive trading sessions of strong gains, benchmark indices slipped marginally lower in early trade today but bounced back later in the session as index heavyweights ITC, Reliance and L&T supported the markets.

At the closing bell, the BSE Sensex stood higher by 157 points (up 0.3%).

Meanwhile, the NSE Nifty closed higher by 47 points (up 0.3%).

ITC and Larsen & Toubro were among the top gainers today.

HDFC Bank and Titan Company, on the other hand, were among the top losers today.

The SGX Nifty was trading at 17,546, up by 32 points, at the time of writing.

The BSE MidCap index and the BSE SmallCap index ended up by 0.4% and 0.8%, respectively.

Sectoral indices ended on a positive note with stocks in the energy sector, FMCG sector and engineering sector witnessing most of the buying interest.

Banking and finance stocks, on the other hand, witnessed selling pressure.

Shares of ABB India and Zee Entertainment hit their respective 52-week highs today.

Asian stock markets ended on a positive note today.

The Hang Seng and the Shanghai Composite ended up by 1.1% and 1%, respectively. The Nikkei ended down by 0.5% in today's session.

US stock futures are trading on a negative note today with the Dow Futures trading down by 64 points.

The rupee is trading at 75.52 against the US$.

Gold prices for the latest contract on MCX are trading on a flat note today at Rs 48,042 per 10 grams.

In news from the telecom sector, RailTel Corp was among the top buzzing stocks today.

Shares of RailTel Corporation of India climbed 5% in early trade today as the company bagged an order worth Rs 2.1 bn from Ircon International for a slew of development on the Dharam-Banihal section of Jammu and Kashmir rail.

According to reports, RailTel's order involves the design, supply, testing, and commissioning of tunnel communication systems consisting of emergency call and service telephone, CCTV, tunnel radio and a public announcement system.

The project is scheduled to be completed in 12 months.

Last month, RailTel, the technical arm of the Indian Railways, had secured a deal worth Rs 869 m for an integrated tunnel communication system in the Kashmir valley.

In a separate filling on Wednesday, RailTel, a Mini Ratna public sector undertaking (PSU) under the Ministry of Railways, signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the National Forensic Sciences University, Gandhinagar, Gujarat.

As per RailTel's press release, the MoU was signed to undertake activities for mutual benefit in the areas of consultancy, collaborative R&D, and training to support 'Atmanirbhar Bharat' and 'Make in India' vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

RailTel Corp is primarily an information and communications technology provider and one of the largest neutral telecom infrastructure providers in the country, owning a pan-India optic fibre network on exclusive right of way (ROW) along railway track.

RailTel Corp. share price ended the day up by 3.5% 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.

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.

Moving on to news from the retailing sector...

Shares of One 97 Communications, Paytm's parent, fell as much as 2% today after the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) announcement to release a discussion paper on digital payment charges is seen weighing on Paytm.

The RBI will soon release a discussion paper on digital payment charges to ensure they are both affordable to users, and economically remunerative to providers, governor Shaktikanta Das had said on Wednesday.

The discussion paper will cover all aspects related to charges involved in various channels of digital payments such as credit cards, debit cards, prepaid payment instruments (cards and wallets), UPI, etc.

The paper will also seek feedback on issues related to convenience fees, surcharging, etc., and the measures required to make digital transactions affordable to users and economically remunerative to the providers.

This could be negative for fintechs like Paytm where major revenues come from payments and if wallet charges are regulated while cap on credit-card merchant discount rate (MDR) could also impact spend based fee income.

Paytm share price ended the day up by 2.6% on the BSE.