Indian share markets reversed gains in today's trading session amid fears that the US Federal Reserve would go for more aggressive rate hikes due to soaring inflation.

US consumer prices accelerated in June, resulting in the largest annual increase in inflation in 40-1/2 years and cementing the case for the Fed to hike interest rates by 75 basis points later this month.

A stronger domestic inflation data earlier this week also boosted prospects of more rate hikes by the Reserve Bank of India next month.

At the closing bell, the BSE Sensex stood lower by 98 points (down 0.2%).

Meanwhile, the NSE Nifty closed lower by 28 points (down 0.2%).

Sun Pharma, Dr Reddy's Laboratories, and Kotak Mahindra Bank were among the top gainers today.

Axis Bank, HCL Technologies, and Tech Mahindra, on the other hand, were among the top losers today.

Bharti Airtel's share price is falling as the Adani group has announced its foray into the telecom sector.

Ever since IT major TCS released its Q1 results, IT stocks are falling.

The SGX Nifty was trading at 15,934, down by 39 points, at the time of writing.

The broader markets ended in the red. The BSE MidCap index ended lower by 0.4% and the BSE SmallCap index ended lower by 0.6%.

Sectoral indices ended on a mixed note today with stocks in the banking sector, financial services sector, and IT sector witnessing most of the selling.

While stocks in the pharma sector, and auto sector witnessed most of the buying.

Shares of Varun Beverages hit their 52-week highs today.

Asian share markets ended on a mixed note today following moderate losses on Wall Street after fresh data indicated inflation in the United States remained at a high level.

The Nikkei ended the day up by 0.6%. While the Shanghai Composite ended lower by 0.1% and the Hang Seng plunged by 0.2%.

The rupee hit a new record low today and is trading at 79.91 against the US $.

Gold prices for the latest contract on MCX are trading down by 0.9% at Rs 50,325 per 10 grams.

Meanwhile, silver prices for the latest contract on MCX are trading down by 1.6% at Rs 56,240 per 1 kg.

Note that silver prices have fallen and have taken quite a knock in recent weeks.

Cryptos and the speculations around them have left everyone confused. On one hand, the government does not identify as a legal tender and on the other hand, the returns were just too good to resist.

The chart above is the Smallcap to Sensex ratio. Despite the sharp rally in small caps, the ratio is 0.47 now.

At this level, it's closer to the long-term median of 0.43 to 0.44, than to the previous peak of 0.58 in January 2018, or the higher peaks earlier.

As per Richa, in the long term, and within this decade, there is a potential for Sensex to touch 1 lakh.

At the median, this would imply 43,000 for smallcap index, versus 26,384 now. The individual small caps could fetch gains much higher than the index.

In news from the mining sector, Hindustan Zinc has announced an interim dividend for its shareholders.

On 13 July, Vedanta-promoted Hindustan Zinc's board approved an interim dividend of Rs 21 per equity share, i.e. 1050% on the face value of Rs 2 per share.

The record date for the purpose of payment of interim is Thursday, 21 July 2022.

The management has guided a flat production growth in the financial year 2023.

This hints at the possibility of it reaching peak mine output unless the large-scale expansion is achieved for sustainable mine production.

Note that the stock has resisted the fall in the wider metal and mining space despite a drop in zinc prices in the international market.

Post the dividend announcement, Hindustan Zinc's share price ended 4.5% higher on the BSE today.

Hindustan Zinc is a dividend aristocrat that has paid 25 dividends in 15 years.

In news from the telecom sector, Bharti Airtel has approved the preferential allotment of 71.1 m shares to US-based tech major Google.

In a regulatory filing, the company said the allotment was made at an issue price of Rs 734 per share.

As an outcome of the aforesaid allotment, Google will hold 1.2% of the total post-issue equity shares of the company.

In January, Google announced an investment of US$ 700 m in Bharti Airtel.

The search engine giant had said it would also invest another US$ 300 m in multi-year commercial agreements.

This will include investments in making smartphones affordable across price ranges and look at India-specific use cases for 5G, to accelerate cloud adoption, particularly for small and medium businesses.

Moving on to news from the energy sector, a Bloomberg report has suggested that the Indian government is deciding to reduce the windfall tax.

The move comes at a time when the profits of fuel exporters and oil producers are dwindling due to the crash in global crude prices.

The measure, aimed at taxing super-normal profits on local oil production, and export shipments of gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel, will be reviewed at a meeting on Friday, 15 July, as per the report.

If a cut is decided upon, it could be implemented immediately.

Global oil prices have fallen about 20% in recent weeks on concerns of a US recession coupled with China's struggle to move beyond a debilitating period of Covid curbs.

Reliance Industries and ONGC share prices ended higher by 0.8% and 2.3% respectively, in an otherwise weak market.

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