Asian stock markets are trading mixed today, following a choppy US session, with investors shifting their focus to a US-China summit.

The Nikkei is up 0.1% while the Shanghai Composite gained 0.2%. The Hang Seng added 0.6%.

In US stock markets, Wall Street indices closed mostly lower as investors moved past the recent round of mostly solid corporate earnings. The fall was marginal though.

Both the Dow Jones and Nasdaq ended 0.1% lower.

Back home, Indian share markets have opened on a negative note.

The BSE Sensex is trading down by 212 points. Meanwhile, the NSE Nifty is trading lower by 45 points.

Maruti Suzuki is among the top gainers today. Reliance Industries, on the other hand, is among the top losers today.

The BSE Mid Cap index is up 0.5%. The BSE Small Cap index is trading higher by 0.6%.

Sectoral indices are trading mixed with stocks in the energy sector and finance sector witnessing most of the selling.

Metal stocks, on the other hand, are trading in green.

Shares of Page Industries and Bata India hit their 52-week highs today.

The rupee is trading at 74.49 against the US$.

Gold prices are trading up by 0.2% at Rs 49,392 per 10 grams.

Meanwhile, silver prices are trading up by 0.5% at Rs 66,891 per kg.

Crude oil prices slipped today as a rebound in Covid-19 cases in Europe raised concerns over demand amid expectation that supply will rise, while some in the market still fear the United States may release crude reserves to stop a rally in gasoline prices.

In news from the banking sector, the Bank of Maharashtra has emerged as the top performer among public sector lenders in terms of loan and savings deposit growth during the second quarter of the current financial year.

Bank of Maharashtra recorded an 11.5% increase in gross advances at Rs 1,152.4 bn in the July-September period of 2021-22.

The lender was followed by Punjab & Sind Bank, which posted a 9.5% growth in advances with aggregate loans at Rs 675.7 bn at the end of September 2021.

In terms of deposit mobilization, the Bank of Maharashtra, with a 14.5% growth was a notch behind Punjab and Sind Bank while SBI recorded a 9.7% rise.

However, in absolute terms, SBI's deposit base was 20 times higher at Rs 36.90 lakh crore as against Rs 1.81 lakh crore of Bank of Maharashtra.

Bank of Maharashtra's current account, savings account (CASA) saw a 22% raise, the highest among the public-sector lenders, during the quarter.

As a result, CASA was 54% or Rs 978.9 bn of the total liability of the bank.

During the quarter, the bank wrote off bad loans worth Rs 11 bn including Rs 5.5 bn exposure to two SREI finance companies after making full provisions.

The bank's asset quality improved significantly as the gross bad loans or gross non-performing assets (NPAs) dipped to 5.56% of gross advances by the end of September 2021. This compared with 8.81% at the end of the second quarter of the previous fiscal.

Bank of Maharashtra shares are currently trading up by 0.5%.

Speaking of PSUs, have a look at the chart below which shows the performance of the 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 the BSE PSU index would have eroded to Rs 80, compared to almost 3x gains for the Sensex.

Moving on to news from the FMCG sector, Ruchi Soya Industries on Monday posted a 29.6% jump in its net profit to Rs 1.6 bn for the second quarter of the financial year 2021-22. This was on account of robust sales.

The company had posted a net profit of Rs 1.3 bn in the corresponding quarter of the previous fiscal.

The Baba Ramdev-led company's net income during July-September 2021 rose to Rs 60.1 bn, compared with Rs 39.9 bn in the year-ago period.

Expenses rose to Rs 57.9 bn, from Rs 38.6 bn a year ago.

The company's branded business, including brands sold under royalty arrangements and institutional segment, achieved sales of Rs 455.1 bn in the second quarter of 2021-22 fiscal.

In the current year, Ruchi Soya Industries has launched 'Ruchi Sunlight', a blended edible oil, biscuits, cookies, ruck, and other bakery products under the Patanjali brand name.

The company has also made a foray into vegetarian nutraceutical and wellness products under the joint branding of Nutrela and Patanjali.

Shares of Ruchi Soya are currently trading up by 5.6%.