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

Benchmark indices rallied for the second consecutive day today amid positive investor sentiment across global markets, lifted primarily by metal and financial stocks.

At the closing bell, the BSE Sensex stood higher by 226 points (up 0.4%).

Meanwhile, the NSE Nifty closed higher by 70 points (up 0.4%).

Tata Steel and Axis Bank were among the top gainers today.

Reliance Industries and HUL, on the other hand, were among the top losers today.

The SGX Nifty was trading at 15,888, up by 50 points, at the time of writing.

The BSE MidCap index and the BSE SmallCap index ended up by 1% and 0.4%, respectively.

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

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

Shares of Apollo Hospitals and Laurus Labs hit their respective 52-week highs today.

Asian stock markets ended on a positive note today after US shares hit a record on a bipartisan US$ 579 bn US infrastructure deal that stoked economic optimism.

The Hang Seng and the Shanghai Composite ended the day up by 1.4% and 1.2%, respectively.

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 103 points.

The rupee is trading at 74.20 against the US$.

Gold prices for the latest contract on MCX are trading up by 0.3% at Rs 47,026 per 10 grams.

Speaking of stock markets, in his latest video, Rahul Shah compares the stocks of CARE Ratings and CRISIL and which has given better returns over the last 12-15 months.

In news from the auto sector, Ashok Leyland was among the top buzzing stocks today.

Shares of Ashok Leyland soared as much as 9% on the BSE today after commercial vehicle makers reported a 550% increase in consolidated profit for the quarter ending March as sales more than doubled, but the company was in the red for the complete fiscal year.

The company reported a profit of Rs 3.8 bn for the fourth quarter against Rs 580 m in the same quarter last year.

Its consolidated revenue improved by 60% to Rs 81.4 bn for the quarter.

Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) improved by 44% year-on-year (YoY) to Rs 10.1 bn.

The EBITDA margin, however, narrowed to 12.4%.

Ashok Leyland registered a standalone net loss of Rs 3.1 bn in the financial year 2021 as against a profit after tax of Rs 2.4 bn in the last year.

Loss before tax came at Rs 4.1 bn in 2021 against a profit before tax of Rs 3.6 bn in the previous fiscal.

Revenue for the year ended March 2021 stood at Rs 153 bn, declining 12.4% from Rs 174.7 bn posted in the year ended March 2020.

Vipin Sondhi, MD & CEO of Ashok Leyland said,

We have seen recovery in quarter four and the overall performance has been better.

However, with the sudden onset of the second wave, the challenges for the industry continues. We are better prepared this time.

With India's GDP poised to grow at 9.5% in the year 2022, it augurs well for the CV industry.

At Ashok Leyland, we remain rock solid and resilient, driven by our Newgen products and a talented team we are confident that we will come out stronger once demand picks up.

This will help us deliver profitable growth.

The board of directors has recommended a dividend of Rs 0.6 per share that is 60% of the face value of Rs 1 per share for the financial year ended 31 March 2021.

Ashok Leyland's share price ended the day up by 4.8% on the BSE.

Moving on to news from the pharma sector...

Cadila Healthcare Gains After USFDA Nod for Pemetrexed for Injection

Cadila Healthcare announced that it has received tentative approval from the US drug regulator to market pemetrexed for injection in the strengths of 100mg/vial, 500 mg/vial, and 1000 mg/vial, single-dose vials.

Pemetrexed is a chemotherapy drug that works by slowing or stopping the growth of cancer cells.

The drug will be manufactured at the formulation manufacturing facility at Zydus Hospira, Ahmedabad.

Earlier this month, the company also received tentative approval from the US drug regulator to market Osimertinib tablets in the strengths of 40 mg and 80 mg.

The group now has 319 approvals and has so far filed over 400 ANDAs since the commencement of the filing process in the financial year 2003-04.

Also, on a consolidated basis, the drug maker's net profit surged 76.9% to Rs 7.3 bn on a 3.6% increase in net sales to Rs 37.6 bn in the March 2021 quarter over the same period a year ago.

Cadila Healthcare is an innovative, global pharmaceutical company that discovers, develops, manufactures, and markets a broad range of healthcare therapies.

Cadila Healthcare's share price ended the day up by 1.2% on the BSE.

Speaking of the stock markets, the right investing process can help you win in the long term. It might offer some unexpected and undesirable results in the short term but lets you farewell when you average the outcomes.

According to Richa Agarwal, Senior Research Analyst at Equitymaster, any investment process should not be judged based on individual outcomes. Instead, it should have stood the test of time.

Her smallcap service Hidden Treasure has had its fair share of failures. But sticking to a disciplined process meant that Hidden Treasure's internal rate of return (IRR) increased to 24.38% since inception. This compares favorably to the IRRs of 9.6% for the Sensex, and 8.8% for the smallcap index in the same period (February 2008 - June 2020) as can be seen in the chart below.

The service's performance did suffer in the short term after the 2018 crash in small caps. However, the long-term track record and the post-Covid rebound underscores the strength of the stock-picking process.