Indian share markets witnessed positive trading activity throughout the day today and ended on a strong note.

Benchmark indices ended the record-breaking year 2021 on a high note.

Though concerns about the Omicron variant of Covid-19 kept investors on the back foot globally.

The Sensex finished the calendar year with a solid gain of 22% (10,503 points), after having touched a new lifetime high of 62,245 on 19 October 2021.

Meanwhile, the Nifty gained 3,372 points in 2021, up 24.1%.

This marked the best year for both benchmarks since 2017.

At the closing bell today, the BSE Sensex stood higher by 460 points (up 0.8%).

Meanwhile, the NSE Nifty closed higher by 150 points (up 0.9%).

Hindalco and Titan Company were among the top gainers today.

NTPC and Cipla, on the other hand, were among the top losers today.

The SGX Nifty was trading at 17,429, up by 134 points, at the time of writing.

The BSE Mid Cap index and the BSE Small Cap index ended up by 1.4% and 1.2%, respectively.

Sectoral indices ended on a positive note with stocks in the metal sector, consumer durables sector and auto sector witnessing most of the buying interest.

Shares of Fortis Healthcare and Suzlon 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 up by 1.2% and 0.6%, respectively. The Nikkei ended down by 0.4% in today's session.

US stock futures are trading on a flat note today with the Dow Futures trading down by 24 points.

The rupee is trading at 74.33 against the US$.

Gold prices for the latest contract on MCX are trading up by 0.1% at Rs 47,919 per 10 grams.

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

State Bank of India on Thursday said it will acquire up to 9.95% stake in India International Clearing Corporation (IICC) subject to a maximum investment of Rs 340.3 m.

The clearing corporation is a GIFT City (Gandhinagar, Gujarat) based market infrastructure institution (MII).

The corporation is the first international clearing corporation to be set up at Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT) international financial services centre (IFSC).

In a regulatory filing, SBI said its investment is strategic, aimed at strengthening the financial markets infrastructure.

India's largest bank said the requisite approvals required for the acquisition have been received from the Reserve Bank of India (in July 2021) and IFSC Authority (in July 2021).

Per the filing, the initial subscription is estimated to be completed by 31 March 2022. Thereafter, the clearing corporation may call up the residual commitment from SBI in accordance with the transaction documents and applicable law.

The nature of consideration for the acquisition is cash, computed as purchase shares multiplied by a purchase price of Rs 1 per share.

The clearing corporation acts as a central counterparty providing clearing & settlement and risk management services to India International Exchange.

SBI share price ended the day up by 1.9% 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 IPO space...

CMS Info Systems Make Tepid Listing

Shares of Mumbai-based cash management company CMS Info Systems made a tepid listing on the NSE and BSE. The stock got listed at Rs 218.5, 1.16% higher on the issue price band of Rs 205-216 apiece.

Poor listing gains might not have been a complete shock for investors as the weak grey market premium and business nature of the company indicated not so good listing gains.

Post listing, the market capitalization of the company stood at Rs 32.3 bn, according to BSE data.

The initial public offering (IPO) was open for subscription from 21 December to 23 December and received poor response from investors. It was subscribed just 1.95 times on the last day of the bidding.

Moreover, the cash management company came up with an IPO when the government was pushing for digitization.

Adding to it, the company's finances dipped slightly during the lockdown as customers shifted some part of their transactions to digital payments.

CMS Info Systems' business includes installing, maintaining and managing assets and technology solutions on an end-to-end outsourced basis for banks under long term contracts.

CMS Info share price ended the day up by 8.9% over its listing price of Rs 218.5 on the BSE.