Share markets in India are presently trading on a positive note. Sectoral indices are trading mixed with stocks in the bank sector and FMCG sector witnessing maximum buying interest while oil & gas stocks and PSU stocks are witnessing selling pressure.

The BSE Sensex is trading up by 181 points (up 0.5%), while the NSE Nifty is trading up by 46 points (up 0.4%). The BSE Mid Cap index is trading on a flat note and the BSE Small Cap index is trading down by 0.2%.

The rupee is trading at Rs 70.54 against the US$.

In the news from the IT sector, HCL technologies share price is witnessing selling pressure today after the company said it is acquiring select IBM software products for $1.8 billion.

On Thursday, International Business Machines Corp said that it will sell some of its software products business to HCL technologies. This is the largest acquisition in the history of HCL which is expected to close by mid-2019.

Reportedly, the software products in scope represent a total addressable market of more than $50 billion. The company will divest seven of its products which include BigFix, Unica and work-stream collaboration product Connections.

To know more about the company, you can access HCL Tech Q2FY19 result analysis and HCL Tech Annual Report on our website.

In the news from the aviation space, Jet Airways share price is in focus today on news that Etihad Airways has offered to finance as much as $200 million to Jet Airways to keep the airline operational.

The cash-strapped airline is already behind schedule on payment of its aircraft lease rentals and has not paid staff salaries in full for the past few months.

Rating agency ICRA downgraded the airline's credit rating to 'B' which is assigned to loan facilities with a high risk of default. Earlier this week, it canceled 14 flights after pilots did not turn up for duty, protesting salary dues. Reportedly, the customers are not getting a refund even for flights canceled by the airlines.

The company's financial woes have worsened by rising crude oil prices and intense pricing competition in the domestic aviation industry.

The company has been going through severe financial crush since last year. It has suffered three consecutive quarterly losses and is currently trying hard to make its turnaround plan aimed at reducing operational costs.

Jet Airways share price has fallen more than 66% since January and is presently trading up by 1.3%.

Moving on to the news from the banking space, shares of Kotak Mahindra bank jumped around 11% on reports that Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc is planning to invest about $4 billion to $6 billion in the bank.

Reportedly, Berkshire Hathaway may invest in the lender by buying promoter stake or through a preferential allotment.

As per RBI guidelines, Uday Kotak needs to dilute his stake to below 20% by December 2018 to ensure a wider ownership of banks. Earlier, Uday Kotak had sought Reserve bank of India's (RBI) permission to bring down his stake in the bank to 20% from the current 30% by selling nonconvertible perpetual noncumulative preference shares (PNCPS) to a group of investors in August 2018. RBI, however, shot down this arrangement.

Speaking of corporate banks, Sarvajeet offers an interesting observation on a corporate bank stock.

Corporate Banks Underperforming Retail-focused Banks

Retail-focused banks such as HDFC Bank and Kotak Mahindra bank performed significantly better compared to corporate banks. One of the important reasons for this outperformance is stable asset quality. They could maintain gross NPAs below 1% in the previous five years.

Whereas corporate focused banks such as ICICI Bank, Axis Bank, and SBI are facing serious asset quality issues. Not to mention, some of these banks had management issues as well. No wonder these banks not only underperformed retail-focused banks, but also the BSE Bank index as well.

But as I mentioned earlier, the worst is behind them.