Photo by Big G Media on Unsplash

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

Benchmark indices snapped their 5-day winning run as Ukraine-Russia talks reached 'crossroads'. From here on, either there will be an agreement or Russia will go on offensive, said Ukraine's presidential advisor.

Global markets lost their momentum as new financial and trade sanctions were imposed on Russia along with the suspension of gas imports.

Markets are also lower ahead of the US Fed meeting in which the market widely expects Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) to initiate a rate hike.

The Sensex tanked sharply in the fag-end of the session, sinking 1,302 points from the day's high and hit a low of 55,419.

At the closing bell, the BSE Sensex stood lower by 709 points (down 1.3%).

Meanwhile, the NSE Nifty closed lower by 208 points (up 1.2%).

Tata Consumer Products and M&M were among the top gainers today.

Tata Steel and Hindalco, on the other hand, were among the top losers today.

The SGX Nifty was trading at 16,637, down by 246 points, at the time of writing.

The BSE Mid Cap index and the BSE Small Cap index ended down by 0.7% and 0.8%, respectively.

Sectoral indices ended on a mixed note with stocks in the metal sector, oil & gas sector and energy sector witnessing most of the selling pressure.

Auto stocks, on the other hand, witnessed buying interest.

Shares of Linde India and Cipla hit their respective 52-week highs today.

Asian stock markets struggled today, with Hong Kong tech firms leading another sharp equity selloff in the city following the Covid-19 shutdown of tech hub Shenzhen and worries over Russia's military outreach to China.

The Hang Seng and the Shanghai Composite ended down by 5.7% and 5%, respectively. The Nikkei ended up by 0.2% in today's session.

US stock futures are trading on a negative note today with the Dow Futures trading down by 114 points.

The rupee is trading at 76.61 against the US$.

Gold prices for the latest contract on MCX are trading down by 1% at Rs 51,777 per 10 grams.

In news from the finance sector, Paytm was among the top buzzing stocks today.

Paytm shared an update on its operational performance for the fourth quarter of the fiscal 2022, with updated figures for the first two months of the quarter.

The fintech firm said it achieved highest ever monthly loan disbursals and sees sustained growth in payments business.

In a regulatory filing, it shared,

• We saw that the number of loans disbursed through our platform grew 449% year on year (YoY) to 4.1 million loans in first two months of the quarter, with approximately 2.2 million loans disbursed in February 2022 alone, while the value of loans disbursed was Rs 21 bn.

The total GMV processed through its platform during the first two months of the quarter aggregated to approximately Rs 1,653 bn (US$22.2 bn), marking a growth of 105% from the same quarter last year.

GMV is the merchant payments processed through all instruments (Paytm Wallet, Paytm Payments bank account, other banks netbanking, credit and debit cards, UPI etc.).

The Vijay Shekhar Sharma-led company continued to see an increase in user engagement, with average monthly transacting users (MTU) during the period at 69.5 million, growth of 41% YoY. Meanwhile, it said that its offline payments business strengthens as more merchants adopted Paytm payment instruments.

Further, the company said that RBI's curbs on Paytm Payments Bank does not impact any existing customers, who can continue to use all banking and payment services without interruption.

After the RBI imposed a ban on onboarding new customers to Paytm Payments Bank on Saturday, the company stocks have seen almost a 70% decline from their all-time high price.

To further add, the firm's troubles were compounded over the weekend after news broke that founder and chief executive Vijay Shekhar Sharma had been briefly detained last month after crashing into a senior police officer's car in the capital New Delhi and fleeing the scene.

Paytm share price ended the day down by 13% on the BSE.

Moving on to news from the engineering sector...

L&T Construction Bags Significant Orders

The construction subsidiary of engineering behemoth Larsen & Toubro (L&T) has bagged 'significant' orders for its power transmission & distribution business.

The company classifies orders worth Rs 10 bn to Rs 25 bn as significant.

The renewable arm of the business has won an order to construct a 245 MW solar power project in Rajasthan.

Another order has been secured to implement a solar photovoltaic cum storage project in the Kutch district of Gujarat. The large scale, grid interactive green energy storage project will have a 35 MW (AC) solar capacity and a 57 MWh Battery Energy Storage System (BESS).

In the Middle East, the company has won orders for supply and construction of shunt reactors in 132 kV substations on a turnkey basis.

These reactive power compensation elements will be added to the 132kV network of Dubai's electricity infrastructure and will provide voltage control to help in maintaining the highest standards of availability, reliability, and efficiency.

Additional orders have been received from ongoing transmission line projects.

Larsen & Toubro is an Indian multinational engaged in EPC projects, manufacturing, and services. It operates in over 50 countries worldwide.

L&T share price ended the day down by 0.3% on the BSE.

Speaking of the stock markets, a right investing process can help you win in the long term. It might offer some unexpected and undesirable results in the short term but lets you fare well when you average the outcomes.

According to Richa Agarwal, Senior Research Analyst at Equitymaster, any investment process should not be judged based on individual outcomes. Instead, it should have stood the test of the time.

Her smallcap service Hidden Treasure has had its fair share of failures. But sticking to a disciplined process meant that Hidden Treasure's internal rate of return (IRR) increased to 24.38% since inception.

This compares favourably to the IRRs of 9.6% for the Sensex, and 8.8% for the smallcap index in the same period (February 2008 - June 2020) as can be seen in the chart below.

The service's performance did suffer in the short term after the 2018 crash in smallcaps. However, the long term track record and the post Covid rebound underscores the strength of stock picking process.