Indian share markets continued their positive trend during closing hours today and ended their day on a firm note.

At the closing bell, the BSE Sensex stood higher by 257 points (up 0.5%).

Meanwhile, the NSE Nifty closed higher by 115 points (up 0.7%).

Coal India and UPL were among the top gainers today.

ICICI Bank was among the top losers today.

The SGX Nifty was trading at 15,175, up by 77 points, at the time of writing.

The BSE Mid Cap index ended up by 1.1%. The BSE Small Cap index ended up by 1.4%.

Sectoral indices ended on a positive note. Gains were largely seen in the energy sector and metal sector which ended the day up by 3.9% and 3.4%, respectively.

Asian share markets ended on a positive note.

The Nikkei was up 1.6% while the Shanghai Composite stood higher by 0.6%. The Hang Seng ended up by 1.2%.

US stock futures are trading higher today indicating a positive opening for Wall Street indices with Dow Futures trading up by 40 points (up 0.1%).

The rupee is trading at 72.44 against the US$.

Gold prices for the latest contract on MCX are trading down by 0.1% at Rs 46,475 per 10 grams.

In news from the IPO space...

MTAR Technologies, a precision engineering solutions company, is set to launch its initial public offering (IPO) for subscription next week on March 3, 2021.

Through this issue, the company looks to raise Rs 5.9 billion, at the upper end of the price band. The issue will close for subscription on March 5, 2021. The issue comprises a fresh issue of 21.48 lakh equity shares by the company and an offer for sale (OFS) of 82.24 lakh equity shares by promoters and investors.

The company has fixed the price band of the issue at Rs 574-575 per share of the face value of Rs 10 each.

The Hyderabad-based company has precision engineering capabilities to build nuclear and pressurized water reactors, aerospace engines, missile systems, aircraft components, and many other critical components and assemblies.

MTAR supplies high-precision machine fabricated systems to DRDO Labs, Bharat Dynamics, HAL, BEL, etc., and other defense R&D.

In the calendar year 2021, MTAR Technologies would be the ninth public issue after Indian Railway Finance Corporation (IRFC), Indigo Paints, Home First Finance Company India, Stove Kraft, Brookfield India REIT, Nureca, RailTel Corporation of India and Heranba Industries.

Reports state that the recent government initiatives such as Make in India, India aiming to become an exporter in the defense sector, rising budgetary allocations for defense and space sectors, provide a great opportunity to companies such as MTAR Technologies.

How the above IPO sails through remains to be seen. Meanwhile, stay tuned for more updates from this space.

Speaking of the defense sector, have a look at the chart below which shows the top 5 military spending countries in the world as of 2019:

Moving on to stock-specific news...

Coal India was among the top buzzing stocks today.

As per a leading financial daily, Coal India is planning to invest Rs 1.43 lakh crore in 26 projects in new business areas. The new business areas will include solar wafer manufacturing, a greenfield aluminum project along with brownfield aluminum projects in a joint venture with NALCO, solar generation projects, and thermal power plants.

The company has received approvals from NITI Aayog, DIPAM for the solar water manufacturing and the greenfield aluminum projects. It has already prepared a draft market assessment report and plans for a special purpose vehicle (SPV) and aims to float tender for the JV by Q2FY22.

The company plans to incorporate SPV where it will seek private partners and bid will be on the lines of the UMPP (Ultra mega power project) model where Coal India will retain a 26% equity stake for both 10 GW solar manufacturing and 1 million tonnes per annum refinery and 0.5 MTPA smelter proposed for the aluminum greenfield project.

Rs 260 billion is proposed for solar wafer manufacturing and Rs 380 billion for aluminum smelting greenfield project by Coal India.

It also plans to participate in the solar energy corporation of India's (SECI) for solar power generation projects in a JV with Neyveli Lignite Corporation once it gets approval. Coal India with Neyveli lignite plans to commission thermal power projects of over 8,500 MW capacity which are expected to be commissioned between FY22-28 in Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu.

The company also plans to invest Rs 380 billion in clean coal technologies. It is expected that CIL may float tender for 4 coal gasification projects in May this year. Along with coal gasification, the company intends to float tender for 3 coal bed methane projects and 3 coal washeries in the first quarter of FY22.

How these developments pan out remains to be seen. Meanwhile, we will keep you updated on all the developments from this space.