Asian share markets opened higher today after the Federal Reserve indicated the bank's pace of interest rate hikes could begin to slow down.

The Nikkei traded flat, while the Hang Seng was down by 0.1%. The Shanghai Composite is trading higher by 0.5%.

Technology companies led a broad rally for stocks on Wall Street Wednesday as investors welcomed another interest rate hike by the Federal Reserve as a sign the central bank is ratcheting up its campaign to fight surging inflation.

In a widely expected move, the central bank raised its key interest rate by three-quarters of a point (75 bps).

The Dow Jones rose by 1.4% while the tech-heavy Nasdaq was up 4.1%

Back home, Indian share markets are trading on a strong note.

Benchmark indices opened higher today following the trend on SGX Nifty. Soon as the session progressed, gains were extended.

At present, the BSE Sensex is trading higher by 741 points. Meanwhile, the NSE Nifty is trading up by 204 points.

Bajaj Finance and Bajaj Finserv are among the top gainers today.

Sun Pharma and Ultratech Cement are among the top losers today.

Bajaj twins rallied up to 10% today after Bajaj Finance posted stellar results and Bajaj Finserv announced a stock split recently.

Tanla's share price is in focus after it announced its Q1 results. Tanla's share price is falling dramatically on the bourses post the result announcement.

Meanwhile, Zomato's share price, after falling for the past couple of days, is trading in green today.

Broader markets are trading on a positive note. The BSE Mid Cap index is up by 0.6% while the BSE Small Cap index is trading higher by 0.6%.

Sectoral indices are trading on a positive note with the exception of the healthcare sector.

Stocks in the finance and IT sectors witnessing most of the buying.

Blue Dart Express and Page Industries hit their 52-week highs today.

In the commodity markets, gold prices rally. Today, gold prices are up by Rs 197 trading at Rs 50,917 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 56,042 per kg. Silver prices have fallen a lot in recent days.

Lately, gold prices have been knocked off. There are a lot of reasons why the gold price is falling. Some of the reasons are higher interest rates, easing inflation, etc.

Gold is back down to the prices of May - June 2020. Let us take a look at how gold has performed since January 2020.

(Click on image to enlarge)

 Does the falling trend beg the question is time to buy gold?

The rupee is trading at 79.76 against the US dollar.

The rupee fell and closed at 79.84 against the US$ yesterday.

In news from the auto sector, Tata Motors posted its Q1 results.

On Wednesday, auto major Tata Motors reported a consolidated net loss of Rs 50.1 bn for the April-June quarter. It reported a consolidated net loss of Rs 44.5 bn in the year-ago period.

The passenger vehicle giant's consolidated revenue jumps 8% to Rs 7.2 bn as against Rs 6.6 bn from a year-ago period.

Analysts had expected the auto major to report a consolidated net loss of Rs 12.6 bn during the June quarter.

The EBIT margin has decreased to 4.4%, reflecting lower wholesales, and a weaker product mix.

British arm JLR saw an 11.3% YoY drop in sales at 4,406 m pounds. The company said that retail sales for JLR in the quarter under review were 78,825 vehicles, broadly flat compared with the March quarter and down 37% compared with the year-ago period.

Sequentially, JLR revenues were down 7.6%, impacted by supply challenges including semiconductor shortages, slower than expected ramp-up of the New Range Rover and New Range Rover Sport production, and China lockdowns.

Tata Motors has been in the news for making the most of the EV opportunity. EVs are the next big thing in the auto sector and Tata Group is making sure that they make the most of the opportunity. An investor should know how the Tata Group is riding India's EV revolution.

Further, in the news from the FMCG sector, Colgate-Palmolive India posted its Q1 results.

Oral care company Colgate Palmolive (India) on July 27 clocked a profit after tax of Rs 2.1 bn for the quarter ended June 2022, down 10.1% YoY with rural slowdown and inflationary pressures hitting the performance. Profit in the year-ago quarter stood at Rs 2.3 bn.

The company's revenue for the June quarter came in at Rs 11.9 bn, up 2.6% from Rs 11.7 bn in the corresponding period of the last fiscal.

The company reported exceptional expenses of Rs 93.4 m in the June quarter with respect to certain organizational structure changes.

At the operating level, EBITDA declined 8.3% YoY to Rs 32.6 m for the quarter ended June 2022 and the margin contracted to 27.2% against 30.5% in the year-ago period. The gross margin fell 291 bps YoY to 70.6%.

The financial statements portray a bad picture right now, but do you know that Colgate is one of the 5 ROE companies?

In news from the IT sector, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has big news for its investors.

TCS rose 1.2% to Rs 3,153.9 after the company said that it had helped Marks and Spencer (M&S) digitally transform its HR function and align its future business goals and HR strategies.

M&S was looking to adopt innovative technology solutions to enable simpler and harmonized business operations and HR processes, and offer world-class employee experiences.

As part of the program, TCS migrated 27 million records of M&S employees working across 1,450 locations in the UK, and enabled seamless, secure data connections across the landscape.

In 2022, all IT stocks were falling and so was TCS. TCS share price was falling until now but this news has finally brought good news for investors.

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