Share markets in India are presently trading marginally lower.

The BSE Sensex is trading down by 48 points, down 0.1% at 49,469 levels.

Meanwhile, the NSE Nifty is trading down by 20 points.

Mahindra & Mahindra and Indian Oil Corporation are among the top gainers today. HDFC and Shree Cement are among the top losers today.

The BSE Mid Cap index is trading down by 0.4%.

The BSE Small Cap index is trading down by 0.3%.

On the sectoral front, stocks from the consumer durables sector and finance sector, are witnessing most of the selling pressure.

On the other hand, stocks from the telecom sector are witnessing most of the buying interest.

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

Nasdaq Futures are trading up by 29 points (up 0.2%) while Dow Futures are trading up by 41 points (up 0.1%).

The rupee is trading at 73.14 against the US$.

Gold prices are trading up 0.7% at Rs 49,389 per 10 grams.

In global markets, gold rates edged higher today, boosted by rising coronavirus cases worldwide. The recent rally in the US Treasury yields and dollar also paused, helping support gold at lower levels. Spot gold rose 0.1% to US$1,856.9 per ounce.

Tracking positive global cues, gold prices moved higher in Indian markets. On MCX, February gold futures were up 0.7% to Rs 49,410 per 10 gram while silver prices gained 0.6% to Rs 6,279 per kg. In the previous session, gold rates had eased 0.5%.

Note that after a strong 25% gain last year, gold prices have wavered this year amid a rise in US bond yields and rebound in US dollar.

Moving on to stock-specific news...

Among the buzzing stocks, today is Tech Mahindra.

IT services major Tech Mahindra said it will acquire Payments Technology Services (PTSL), a step-down subsidiary of fintech firm FIS, for US$ 9 million (about Rs 660 million).

The acquisition will give Tech Mahindra access to PTSL's IPs and licenses for two products - Open Payment Framework (OPF) and Multi-Bank System (MBS) and will also open up other opportunities for it as a larger partner with FIS across a number of areas.

The company has inked a professional services agreement with FIS to scale its enterprise payments and banking capabilities.

"This agreement aligns with Tech Mahindra's strategy to expand its BFSI (banking, financial services and insurance) footprint globally. In support of this strategy, Tech Mahindra will also build a state-of-the-art Centre of Excellence (CoE) in Chennai, India," it added.

Note that the transaction is expected to close by March 31, 2021.

Established in March 2007, PTSL is a payments solutions provider with a focus on banking and financial services (BFS). The company is headquartered in Hong Kong and has approximately 109 employees. Its turnover for the financial year ended December 31, 2019 was US$ 5.4 million.

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

At the time of writing, Tech Mahindra's share price was trading down by 0.3% on the BSE.

Moving on to news from the IPO space...

IPO Buzz: Indian Railway Finance Corporation (IRFC) IPO Opens Next Week

The Indian Railway Finance Corporation (IRFC) initial public offer (IPO) is scheduled to open on January 18, becoming the first public issue of 2021.

The issue will close for subscription on January 20, 2021.

According to the red herring prospectus (RHP), the issue is of up to 1.8 billion shares, comprising a fresh issue of 594 million equity shares and an offer-for-sale of up to 1.2 billion crore shares. The price band of the issue is in the range of Rs 25-26 per share of the face value of Rs 10 apiece.

The bids for the issue can be made for a minimum of 575 equity shares and in multiples thereafter. Up to 50% of the net issue will be reserved for the Qualified Institutional Buyers (QIB) while the company has reserved not more than 35% of the issue for the retail investors. However, 15% of the issue will be reserved for the non-Institutional category.

The dedicated market borrowing arm of the Indian Railways will utilize the net proceeds towards augmenting the company's equity capital base to meet future capital requirements arising out of growth in business and general corporate purposes.

The shares of IRFC are proposed to be listed on BSE and NSE. DAM Capital Advisors, HSBC Securities, and Capital Markets (India) Private, ICICI Securities, and SBI Capital Markets are the book running lead managers to the offer, while KFin Technologies Private Ltd will be the registrar to the issue.

How this IPO pans out remains to be seen. Meanwhile, stay tuned for more updates from this space.

According to Richa Agarwal, Senior Research Analyst at Equitymaster, any investment process should not be judged based on individual outcomes. Instead, it should have stood the test of time.

Her smallcap internal rate of return (IRR) increased to 24.3% since inception. This compares favorably to the IRRs of 9.6% for the Sensex, and 8.8% for the smallcap index in the same period (February 2008 - June 2020) as can be seen in the chart below.