Indian share markets witnessed negative trading activity in most of today's session and ended lower.

Despite recovering from the day's low in the last hour of trade, benchmark indices ended on a weak note tracking mixed global cues.

At the closing bell, the BSE Sensex stood lower by 185 points, down 0.3%. Meanwhile, the NSE Nifty fell 62 points.

M&M, HDFC, and Kotak Mahindra Bank were among the top gainers today.

Nestle, Tech Mahindra, and Bajaj Finserv, on the other hand, were among the top losers today.

The SGX Nifty was trading at 16,512, down by 65 points, at the time of writing.

The BSE Midcap index slipped 0.1% while the BSE Smallcap index bucked the trend and ended higher by 0.6%.

On the sectoral front, pharma stocks, power stocks, and realty stocks were among the hardest hit.

Banking stocks, on the other hand, witnessed huge buying interest.

Shares of Blue Dart Express and Fine Organic Industries hit their respective 52-week highs today.

Meanwhile, Adani Power's momentum seems to be lost as it is on a downtrend for the past two days.

Dixon Technologies' share price is rising, after coming down from its recent highs in the past few months.

In this volatile market, a few penny stocks are continuously hitting their 52-week highs. Several Indian stocks have delivered multi-bagger returns in a span of one month.

But not all are worthy. Most of them are trading in uncharted territory and have become overvalued.

Asian share markets ended on a mixed note today. The Nikkei rallied by 0.7% while the Hang Seng ended lower by 0.5%.

US stock futures are trading in red indicating a negative opening for Wall Street indices with the Nasdaq Futures trading down by 15 points.

Gold prices for the latest contract on MCX are trading down by 0.6% at Rs 50,560 per 10 grams.

The rupee is trading at 77.47 against the US$.

In news from the banking sector, banks and housing finance companies have increased loan interest rates, a move that will increase EMIs for new and existing borrowers.

HDFC has announced that it has raised its benchmark lending rate by 5 basis points, its third hike in the last month alone.

State-owned bank, Punjab National Bank, hiked its marginal cost of funds-based lending rate by 15 basis points.

ICICI Bank and Bank of India have also hiked the marginal cost of funds-based lending rate.

Since we're discussing banking stocks, look at the NPA levels which are currently at 5-year lows, but are still a substantial 6% of the overall loan book.

For now, higher lending rates have offered a bigger margin to banks. Lending rates have gone up but deposit rates are yet to catch up.

So, for a few quarters, higher net interest margins will make the banks look healthy.

Moving on to stock-specific news, Vodafone Idea has launched its ad-tech platform called Vi Ads, as it forayed into the multibillion-dollar ad-tech industry.

Vi Ads is driven by artificial intelligence and machine learning and is aimed at giving marketers a programmatic media buying platform.

According to the company's statement,

Vi Ads will enable marketers to engage with over 243 m subscribers through multiple channels like Vi-owned digital media and traditional channels like SMS, and IVR calls.

Vi Ads will offer a self-serve interface enabling marketers with full control of their campaigns from campaign setup, tracking campaign performance to driving campaign insights.

Additionally, the market cap of the company swelled up by Rs 20 bn in the last few days after news of its fundraising plans, especially from a well-capitalized global player like Amazon has started doing the rounds.

Although, the company failed to keep up the momentum and Vodafone Idea share price ended 3% lower on the BSE today.

Moving on to news from the technology space, shares of Cressanda Solutions hit the upper circuit for 5 days in a row as the company bagged a Rs 15 bn order.

The company announced that it has entered into an agreement with a large institutional client for providing tech-powered infrastructure solutions for the unaddressed passenger experience in India.

Cressanda Solutions has announced that it will play a pivotal role in managing the entire operations of this prestigious project with an estimated value of Rs 15 bn in a fully functional year.

As per the company's filing with the exchanges, the company will have numerous 'Physical and Digital' touchpoints with the consumers while providing end-to-end solutions such as last-mile transportation, hospitality, housekeeping, and digital payments.

Cressanda Solutions' share price was stuck in the upper circuit throughout the trading session today and ended 5% higher on the BSE.

In the last year, this penny stock has turned into a multi-bagger after surging from Rs 0.61 to Rs 32.15 a piece, clocking near 5,200% return in this period.