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After opening the day on a positive note, Indian share markets continued the downtrend as the session progressed and ended the day lower.

Equity benchmark indices reeled under heavy selling pressure on Wednesday as geopolitical tensions in the Middle East, including Iran's call to impose sanctions and the need to implement an oil embargo against Israel, pushed up oil prices by 3%.

At the closing bell, the BSE Sensex stood higher by 261.2 points (up 0.4%).

Meanwhile, the NSE Nifty closed lower by 140 points (down 0.7%).

Cipla and Sun Pharma were among the top gainers today.

HDFC Bank and NTPC were among the top losers today.

Check out the NSE Nifty heatmap to get the complete list of gainers and losers.

The Gift Nifty was trading at 19,667, down by 145 points, at the time of writing.

Broader markets ended on a positive note. The BSE Midcap index ended 0.9% lower and the BSE SmallCap index ended 0.3% lower.

Barring the auto sector and healthcare sector all other sectoral indices ended mixed with stocks in the financial sector and power sector witnessing selling pressure.

Shares of Tejas Networks and Coal India hit their 52-week highs today.

Now track the biggest movers of the stock market using the stocks to watch today section. This should help you keep updated with the latest developments...

Asian share markets ended on a negative note. The Hang Seng fell 0.2% while the Nikkei ended flat. Meanwhile Shanghai Composite closed 0.8% lower.

The rupee is trading at 83.27 against the US$.

Gold prices for the latest contract on MCX are trading up by 1% at Rs 59,804 per 10 grams.

Meanwhile, silver prices for the latest contract on MCX are trading 1.4% higher at Rs 72,550 per kg.
 

Zensar Tech stock slumps 5%. Here's why.

In news from the IT sector, Zensar Technologies failed to cheer the Street with its second-quarter performance and shares tanked 5%.

In the quarter ended in September, the IT service company's revenue grew a modest 0.5% on-year to Rs 12.4 bn, impacted by weak hi-tech and manufacturing verticals.

The company registered a 206.3% on-year net profit growth to Rs 1.7 bn in Q2FY24 as a focus on cost optimization bore fruit.

Vertical-wise, banking or manufacturing grew 3/6.7% QoQ in constant currency (CC) terms, while hi-tech or healthcare declined 8.3/1.7% QoQ in CC terms due to delayed decision-making and budget tightening by key clients.

Within geographies, North America was down 4.3% QoQ, whereas Europe and Africa registered a growth of 11.3/7.9% QoQ.

That apart, the company's earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) margins contracted 0.2%.

The headcount and attrition moderated to a 13-quarter low of 13.1% in Q2.

The management highlighted that continued challenges in hi-tech and consumer verticals are expected to continue.

Zensar Technologies, a part of the RPG group, is a key player in the digital solutions domain.

With its involvement in the AI project, it is a popular AI growth stock to add to the watchlist.
 

Why Tejas Networks hits new high.

Moving on to news from the telecom sector, Tejas Networks rallied 7.3% to touch a new high of Rs 939 on BSE today after it announced that its Italian partner, FibreConnect, rolled out broadband services in that country that was built using its telecom and networking products.

Tejas was the sole supplier of optical networking and broadband access products for FibreConnect's country-wide FTTP (fibre-to-the-premise) rollout.

FibreConnect is a wholesale telecom infrastructure player in Italy.

The work not only signaled the company's emergence as a leading end-to-end supplier of world-class telecom equipment, but it also demonstrated a growing confidence among global telcos in Tejas' ability to design and execute complex, large-scale networks, all the way from access to core.

Tejas Networks designs and manufactures high-performance wireline and wireless networking products for telecommunications service providers, internet service providers, utilities, defense, and government entities in over 75 countries.

The company is a part of Tata Group, with Panatone Finvest, a subsidiary of Tata Sons, as the majority shareholder.

The shares of the company have rallied over 150% in the past 5 years. Take a look below.

It stands in the Top 5 Smallcap 5G Stocks to Watch Out for as India's 5G Revolution Begins.
 

Why HUDCO share price is falling.

Moving on to news from the finance sector, Shares of Housing and Urban Development Corporation Ltd. (HUDCO) declined as much as 9% after the government announced it would sell up to 7% stake in the housing finance company through an Offer for Sale (OFS).

The government plans on selling up to 3.5% equity through the OFS with a greenshoe option to sell another 3.5% stake. Based on the base offer and oversubscription option, the government plans on selling up to 140.1 m shares.

Non-retail investors can bid in the OFS today, i.e., Wednesday, while the offer for retail investors will open on 19 October.

Recently, the government had pared over a 4% stake in SJVN after the stock had risen over 100% in 2023, a first in the company's history as a listed enterprise.

India's financial sector is robust and dynamic, with many companies offering a wide range of investment and financial services to customers. 

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