Share markets in India are presently trading marginally lower.

The BSE Sensex is trading down by 30 points, down 0.1% at 47,715 levels.

Meanwhile, the NSE Nifty is trading down by 13 points.

HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank are among the top gainers today. Shree Cement and UltraTech Cement are among the top losers today.

The BSE Mid Cap index is trading up by 0.2%.

The BSE Small-Cap index is trading up by 0.3%.

On the sectoral front, stocks from the real estate sector are witnessing most of the buying interest.

On the other hand, stocks from the IT sector are witnessing most of the selling pressure.

US stock futures are trading higher today, indicating a positive opening for Wall Street indices.

Nasdaq Futures are trading up by 9 points (up 0.1%) while Dow Futures are trading up by 20 points (up 0.1%).

The rupee is trading at 73.04 against the US$.

Gold prices are trading down by 0.2% at Rs 50,052 per 10 grams.

In global markets, gold prices were higher today supported by a weaker US dollar.

However, in Indian markets gold prices edged lower. On MCX, gold futures declined 0.1% to Rs 50,097 per 10 grams.

Moving on to stock-specific news...

Among the buzzing stocks, today is Tejas Networks.

Tejas Networks has received a purchase order of US$ 13 million from a leading telecommunications service provider in South East Asia.

As per the contract, Tejas will supply and install its award-winning TJ1400 ultra-converged broadband products (TJ1400UCB) to extend high-speed broadband services to underserved rural communities in the region.

"We are delighted to be chosen for this prestigious project that will enable a sizable rural population to experience the tangible benefits of high-speed, reliable, and affordable wireless internet for the first time. TJ1400UCB is an innovative product that provides the flexibility to rapidly rollout broadband services on optical fiber, wireless, or copper media, as per available infrastructure, at highly affordable costs," said Sanjay Nayak, Managing Director and CEO of Tejas Networks.

The project is expected to be executed within the next 12 months, the company said in an exchange filing.

Tejas Networks designs, develops and sells cost-competitive networking products to telecommunications service providers, internet service providers, utilities, defense, and government entities in over 75 countries.

We will keep you posted on more updates from this space. Stay tuned.

At the time of writing, Tejas Networks' share price was trading up by 5% on the BSE.

Speaking of stock markets, in his latest video, Co-Head of Research at Equitymaster, Rahul Shah talks about his preferred portfolio for 2021 and beyond.

In the video, Rahul shares his portfolio strategy and the important principles one needs to keep in mind in order to build a market-beating portfolio.

Moving on to news from the banking sector...

Yes Bank Appoints New Chief Financial Officer

Private sector lender Yes Bank on December 30 said it has appointed Niranjan Banodkar as its group Chief Financial Officer (CFO) with effect from January 1, 2021.

Mr. Banodkar will replace Anurag Adlakha who has now been appointed Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO), the bank said in a notification to exchanges.

Mr. Banodkar has 17 years of diverse experience in Banking in Risk Management, Capital Markets, Financial Planning, and Strategy.

He is currently responsible for the Strategy & Planning function as well as driving the sustainability agenda at the bank. He started working with Yes Bank in April 2006 and was a key member in setting up the Market Risk function, the bank said.

As Head of Market Risk, he was responsible for setting up policies, procedures, and limits for prudent risk-taking across the bank's Financial Markets businesses.

Over the last six years, as Head of Financial & Investor Strategy, he has successfully led multiple fundraising initiatives across equity and debt instruments. He is a Chartered Accountant and has also cleared FRM (GARP) exam.

Speaking of the banking sector, check out the monthly returns of major sectors for the month of March and October 2020 in the chart below.

In the chart above, you can see that banks were among the major losers with a cut of 34% in the month of March.

Cut to October they are the biggest gainers for the month with 11% returns!

If you're interested in knowing what could be the reason behind such a change in sentiment, you can read about it in one of the editions of Profit Hunter: Banks are booming in a Covid World