Asian share markets began sharply lower today, extending their losing streak into a fifth day following another drop on Wall Street, on fears central banks will continue to ramp up interest rates for some time to quell inflation.

The Nikkei fell by 1.1% while the Hang Seng was down by 1.7%. The Shanghai Composite is trading higher by 0.1%.

Wall Street's main indices closed lower on Tuesday, the first session after the US Labor Day holiday and summer vacations, as traders assessed fresh economic data in volatile trading.

The Dow Jones fell by 0.6% while the tech-heavy Nasdaq ended lower by 0.7%.

Back home, Indian share markets are trading deep in the red.

Benchmark indices staged a gap-down opening today following the trend on SGX Nifty.

At present, the BSE Sensex is trading lower by 283 points. Meanwhile, the NSE Nifty is trading down by 78 points.

UltraTech Cement and Nestle are among the top gainers today.

Bharti Airtel and IndusInd Bank are among the top losers today.

Broader markets are trading on a mixed note. The BSE Mid Cap index is up by 0.2% while the BSE Small Cap index is trading higher by 0.4%.

Sectoral indices are trading on a mixed note, with stocks in the telecom sector witnessing some buying.

While stocks in the IT sector and metal sector are witnessing selling.

Adani Enterprises and KEI Industries hit their 52-week high today.

The reason we say this is because dividend investing is an evergreen strategy in the stock markets and will continue to prevail in the years to come, but it is more so relevant in the current environment where uncertainty is ruling the stock market.

In the commodity markets, gold and silver prices fall today. Today, gold prices are trading lower by Rs 235. Currently, gold prices are trading at Rs 50,046 per 10 grams.

Note that gold prices have fallen and have taken quite a knock in recent weeks.

Meanwhile, silver prices are trading higher at Rs 52,801 per kg. Silver prices too have fallen a lot in recent days.

The rupee is trading at 79.9 against the US dollar

In news from the IT sector, Wipro plans to expand its collaboration with Palo Alto Networks.

Wipro has expanded collaboration with Palo Alto Networks to deliver managed security and network transformation solutions like SASE (Secure Access Service Edge), cloud security, and next-generation SOC (Security Operations Center) solutions based on Zero Trust principles for global enterprises.

The company brings together consulting and managed security services in an integrated delivery approach for improved end-to-end security in an enterprise.

Wipro's IPs and accelerators, such as CARG (Cloud Applications Risk Governance) and WANFreedom, coupled with an automation framework, help enterprises adopt these services quickly and seamlessly across their IT and user landscape.

Palo Alto Networks Prisma Cloud helps secure infrastructure, applications, data, and entitlements across the world's largest clouds from a single unified solution.

This may finally be the good news that Wipro needed because of late, Wipro's share price was falling.

Take a look at the chart below to see its YTD performance.

Moving on to news from the pharma sector, Syngene International divests its stake in its research team.

Drugmaker Biocon on Tuesday divested a 5.4% stake in its research arm Syngene International for a little over Rs 12.2 bn through an open market transaction.

According to bulk deal data available with the BSE, Biocon, the promoter of Syngene International, sold a total of 21,789,164 shares.

The shares were sold at an average price of Rs 560.04 apiece, a discount of more than 3% to Monday's closing price of Rs 578.75 on the BSE.

ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund was among the entities that lapped up the company's shares.

In separate block deals, Raja Ganesan Chandramogan, promoter of Hatsun Agro Products, offloaded 27.2 lakh shares of the company for nearly Rs 2,690 m.

The shares were picked up by Sundaram Mutual Fund and SBI Mutual Fund.

Further in news from the plastic manufacturing sector, Astral receives a nod from NCLT for a merger.

The plastic products firm has received an order from NCLT sanctioning the scheme of amalgamation of subsidiaries Resinova Chemie limited and Astral Biochem themselves. Accordingly, the scheme of amalgamation has become effective from 6 September 2022.

Did you know that Astral is one of the most profitable midcap stocks in India?

In the last three years, Astral's revenue grew at a CAGR of 19.6%, driven by solid volume growth in the adhesives business. The net profit also jumped by 25.1%.

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