Indian share markets witnessed buying interest during closing hours and ended today's volatile session higher.

Investor sentiment turned positive amid global economic recovery prospects and the passage of a US$ 1.9 trillion stimulus bill.

US treasury secretary Janet Yellen had said on Monday that President Joe Biden's coronavirus aid package would provide enough good resources to fuel a 'very strong' US economic recovery.

Investor nerves also calmed a bit after the US labor department reported stronger than expected jobs data for February.

At the closing bell, the BSE Sensex stood higher by 584 points (up 1.2%).

Meanwhile, the NSE Nifty closed higher by 142 points (up 1%).

Kotak Mahindra Bank and HDFC Bank were among the top gainers today. ONGC and Power Grid, on the other hand, were among the top losers today.

The SGX Nifty was trading at 15,150, up by 183 points, at the time of writing.

The BSE Mid Cap index and the BSE Small Cap index ended down by 0.7% and 0.4%, respectively.

On the sectoral front, gains were largely seen in the banking sector, finance sector, and IT sector.

Metal stocks and oil & gas stocks, on the other hand, witnessed selling pressure.

Market participants were tracking shares of Mindtree and Thermax as they hit their respective 52-week highs today.

Market participants were also tracking Tata Steel's share price and Tata Steel PP share price.

While dismissing a petition for staying a move to recover income tax and interest of Rs 12.2 billion for the years 2009-10 to 2014-15, the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal was particularly not amused that Tata Steel rushed to it directly only when the IT department wanted to adjust a due refund of Rs 4.4 billion against the money it wanted to recover as past dues.

Asian share markets recovered from earlier losses, lifted by firmer US equity futures and central bank comments aimed at soothing fears about rising inflation. A pullback in US bond yields also buoyed equity markets.

The Shanghai Composite stood lower by 1.8% while the Nikkei ended up by 1%. The Hang Seng ended higher by 0.5%.

US stock futures are trading higher today indicating a positive opening for Wall Street indices with the Dow Futures trading up by 201 points (up 0.6%).

The rupee is trading at 72.89 against the US$.

Gold prices for the latest contract on MCX are trading up by 0.7% at Rs 44,520 per 10 grams.

In news from the automobile sector, retail sales of passenger vehicles rose by 10.6% in February 2021 to 2,54,058 units from 2,29,734 units in the year-ago period, while two-wheeler sales dropped by 16.1% to 10,91,288 units from 13,00,364 units in the corresponding period last year.

While the tractor segment reported an 18.9% growth in sales, the CV segment saw a fall of 29.5%, according to data from the Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations (FADA), the apex body of the automobile industry in India.

Automobile registrations across the country dropped by more than 13% in February, said FADA.

FADA said that the passenger vehicle waiting period continued to remain as high as 8 months as a scarcity of semi-conductors continued to linger around.

FADA President, Vinkesh Gulati, said that while tractors continued to outperform the broader market, passenger vehicles witnessed double-digit growth on a low base of last year as India started transitioning from BS-IV to BS-VI emission norms.

FADA urged the government to hold diplomatic discussions with countries manufacturing semi-conductors so that the momentum which was built thus far in automobile sales is not lost and the automobile industry continues to fuel the recovery process.

We will keep you updated on the latest developments in this space. Stay tuned.

Moving on to stock-specific news...

SBI Life Insurance was among the top buzzing stocks today.

Shares of SBI Life Insurance gained 5% to hit a 52-week high of Rs 984 after reporting more than 60% growth in new business premiums (NBP) in the month of February. NBP is the premium acquired from new policies for a particular year.

February 2021 saw life insurers recording 21% growth in NBP to Rs 224.3 billion, compared with Rs 185.3 billion in the same period a year ago.

Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) recorded a 24% growth in NBP to Rs 129.2 billion, compared with Rs 104.1 billion.

Private insurers, on the other hand, saw their NBP growing 16% in February to Rs 95.1 billion compared with Rs 81.3 billion.

SBI Life remained the largest private insurer in terms of individual weighted received premium (WRP) YTD during FY21. On an unweighted basis, the company was also the largest private insurer with a market share of 7.7%.

SBI Life Insurance share price ended the day up by 5%.

Moving on to news from the defense sector, shares of BEML witnessed selling pressure today.

Tata Motors, Ashok Leyland and Mahindra, and Mahindra (M&M) are among at least six companies looking to buy the government's 26% stake in state-run defense and construction equipment manufacturer BEML.

Besides, Bharat Forge and Megha Engineering and Infrastructure are also likely to submit Expression of Interest (EoI) for acquiring a stake in the company.

The Department of Investment and Public Asset Management had in January invited EoI to offload its 26% stake in BEML. The government currently holds a 54% stake in BEML.

SBI Capital Markets has been appointed as the transaction advisor for managing the disinvestment process on behalf of the government.

With the stake sale, management control of BEML will also be transferred to the successful bidder. The deadline for submission of EOI was March 1, 2021, which was later extended to March 22, 2021.

The government has set a disinvestment target of Rs 1.75 lakh crore for FY22.

BEML, previously Bharat Earth Movers, is an Indian Public Sector Undertaking, with headquarters in Bengaluru, Karnataka, India. It manufactures a variety of heavy equipment, such as that used for earthmoving, transport and mining.

BEML operates under three major business verticals - defense and aerospace, mining and construction, and rail and metro.

We will keep you posted on more updates from this space. Stay tuned.

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:

According to a SIPRI (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute) report, India was the third-largest military spending country in the world in 2019.