Asian stock markets are mixed today in holiday-thinned trading as investors prepared for a key Federal Reserve meeting later in the week.

While most Asian markets will remain closed, Japan's Nikkei surged at market open. It is presently trading up by 0.6%.

In US stock markets, Wall Street indices ended higher on Friday, with the S&P 500 pushing to another record close as bond yields fell, despite data on Thursday showing inflation running hot.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 13 points or 0.1% while the Nasdaq Composite rose 49 points or 0.4%.

For the week, the Dow fell 0.8%, while the S&P 500 rose 0.4%, for its third straight positive week. The Nasdaq Composite was the outperformer with a gain of nearly 1.9%, posting its fourth winning week in a row.

Back home, Indian share markets have opened on a negative note, following the trend on SGX Nifty.

Coal India, Kajaria Ceramics, and Greenply Industries are among 50 firms slated to release their quarterly numbers today.

The BSE Sensex is trading down by 334 points. Meanwhile, the NSE Nifty is trading lower by 110 points.

Infosys is among the top gainers today. Bajaj Finance, on the other hand, is among the top losers today.

The BSE Mid Cap index and the BSE Small Cap index have opened down by 1.4% and 0.6%, respectively.

Barring IT stocks, all sectoral indices are trading in red with stocks in the power sector and realty sector witnessing most of the selling pressure.

Shares of eClerx Services and Care Ratings hit their 52-week highs today.

The rupee is trading at 73.23 against the US$.

Gold prices are trading down by 0.6% at Rs 48,593 per 10 grams.

Meanwhile, silver prices are trading down by 0.7% at Rs 71,792 per kg.

Crude oil prices traded near multi-year highs today, underpinned by an improved outlook for demand as increased Covid-19 vaccinations help lift travel curbs.

Boosting cryptocurrency sentiment, Tesla CEO Elon Musk on Sunday said the company will resume bitcoin transactions once it confirms there is reasonable clean energy usage by miners.

Following the above news, Bitcoin gained 10% to around US$ 39,000.

In news from the automobile sector, Eicher Motors is among the top buzzing stocks today.

As per a leading financial daily, mid-sized motorcycle maker Royal Enfield is expecting the current fiscal to be one of the best for the company in terms of new model launches as it looks to drive in an array of new products for domestic and international markets.

The company, which is part of Eicher Motors, noted that it has a rich pipeline of products under development that could hit the market in the coming days.

Royal Enfield's current model lineup comprises Meteor, Interceptor, Continental GT, Himalayan, Classic, and Bullet.

In an analyst call, Royal Enfield CEO Vinod K Dasari said,

• In fact, if I may say so, this year will probably be the highest number of new models that you have ever seen from Royal Enfield being launched in a year and that's the beginning of the pipeline. There's a whole bunch that is happening and we are truly excited about it.

The company would continue to have one new model every quarter for the time being due to COVID-related disruptions, he added.

On sales network expansion, Dasari said that it would be a combination of big and small stores depending on the capacity of that region to take them.

Elaborating on the new product scenario, Eicher Motors MD and CEO Siddhartha Lal said that Royal Enfield is taking extreme care in developing new models so that they can match up to the global competition.

Eicher Motors' share price has opened the day up by 0.4%.

Speaking of Royal Enfield, have a look at the chart below which shows the company's sales numbers for the past year.

The sales for few months in the past year were impacted due to the impact of nationwide lockdown.

It is interesting to note that from 2,000 units in the year 2000, Royal Enfield sells 70,000 units a month on an average at present.

Moving on to news from the pharma sector, Lupin on Sunday said it has received a warning letter from the US health regulator for its Somerset facility in the US.

The drug firm said it does not believe the warning letter will have an impact on the disruption of supplies or the existing revenues from operations of this facility.

We uphold quality and compliance issues with utmost importance and are committed to being compliant with 'good manufacturing practice' standards across all our facilities, the company said in a regulatory filing.

When USFDA finds that a manufacturer has significantly violated FDA regulations, it notifies the manufacturer. This notification is often in the form of a warning letter.

Earlier in November 2020, Lupin had said the USFDA had issued 13 observations after the inspection of its subsidiary's Somerset facility.

The facility contributes less than 5% of the company's global revenues.

Lupin's share price has opened the day down by 3.8%.