Indian share markets witnessed volatile trading activity and extended losses to the fourth straight session today.

Anxiety over more anticipated hawkish policy statement by Fed pressurized the benchmark indices to fall today.

The Federal Reserve is expected to announce a faster end to its bond-buying campaign and may signal a rate hike in 2022 amid rising inflationary pressure.

At the closing bell, the BSE Sensex stood lower by 329 points (down 0.6%).

Meanwhile, the NSE Nifty closed lower by 104 points (down 0.6%).

Sun Pharma and Kotak Mahindra Bank were among the top gainers today.

Bajaj Finance and Bajaj Finserv, on the other hand, were among the top losers today.

The SGX Nifty was trading at 17,250, down by 105 points, at the time of writing.

The BSE MidCap index and the BSE SmallCap index ended down by 0.6% and 0.4%, respectively.

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

Auto and capital goods stocks, on the other hand, witnessed buying interest.

Shares of Vardhman Textiles and Adani Green Energy hit their respective 52-week highs today.

Asian stock markets ended on a mixed note today.

The Hang Seng and the Shanghai Composite ended down by 0.9% and 0.4%, respectively. The Nikkei ended up by 0.1% in today's session.

US stock futures are trading on a flat note today with the Dow Futures trading up by 18 points.

The rupee is trading at 76.23 against the US$.

Gold prices for the latest contract on MCX are trading up by 0.1% at Rs 48,115 per 10 grams.

In news from the banking sector, SBI was among the top buzzing stocks today.

Amid the ongoing IPO spree on Dalal Street, State Bank of India (SBI) is all set for the initial stake sale of its mutual fund joint venture.

On Wednesday, the lender said in a regulatory filing:

The executive committee of central board of the bank has accorded approval for exploring possibilities to offload 6% stake of the bank in SBI Funds Management Private Limited through IPO route, subject to receipt of all regulatory approvals.

SBI Mutual Funds is a joint venture between India's largest public-sector lender State Bank of India and France's Amundi Asset management.

According to media reports, the mutual fund player is likely to raise about US$1 bn via its initial stake sale, valuing the company around US$7 bn.

SBI Mutual Funds, the largest mutual fund in the country, if listed, will be the fifth domestic mutual fund player to make the market debut.

Shares of HDFC AMC, UTI Asset Management, Nippon Life India Asset Management and Aditya Birla Sun Life AMC are already listed on the bourses.

SBI plans to list the mutual fund arm as part of its strategy to extract more value from its units after divesting some of its stakes in its life insurance and cards businesses last year.

The company launched the IPO of SBI Cards & Payment Services in March 2020, just before the Covid-19 outbreak. The company had raised about Rs 103.5 bn via the initial stake sale.

SBI share price ended the day down by 0.8% 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 automobile sector...

Cabinet Approves Incentive Scheme For Semiconductors

The union cabinet today approved a Rs 760 bn incentive scheme for semiconductor manufacturing at its meeting today.

Under this scheme, India will set up more than 20 semiconductor designs, components manufacturing and display fabrication (fab) units over the next six years.

This is part of Modi government's bid to make the country a hub for electronics. The nod comes almost a year after the government sought expressions of interest from companies to this effect.

The government proposes to provide multiple incentives to set up for the development of a semiconductor manufacturing ecosystem in India.

The incentives include 25% subsidy on capital expenditure for establishing semiconductor wafer fabrication units in India.

Similar incentives for assembly, testing, packaging units and chip design have also been proposed.

As per reports, this scheme will deepen India's base as a manufacturing hub for semiconductors.

From cars to laptops, TV's, washing machines, all of them use semiconductors. The ongoing global semiconductor shortage has led to shortages across industries, including smartphones, personal computers, game consoles, automobiles and medical devices.

We will keep you updated on the latest developments from this space.