After opening the day in green, share markets in India witnessed negative trading activity throughout the day and ended the day on a weak note as bank stocks dragged after more banks disclosed their exposure in the PNB fraud case. Losses were seen across most sectors with stocks in the metals sector and stocks in the auto sector, leading the losses.

At the closing bell, the BSE Sensex stood lower by 287 points (down 0.8%) and the NSE Nifty closed down by 93 points (down 0.9%). The BSE Mid Cap index ended the day down 1.2%, while the BSE Small Cap index ended the day down by 1.3%.

Top Stocks to Watch Out

Tata Steel share price is expected to gather momentum in today’s trade after it was reported that the company has emerged as the highest bidder for Bhushan Steel with a surprise bid of Rs 350 billion. JSW Steel, which was the favourite till the end of the race, was second placed with a bid of Rs 297 billion.

In news from power sector, as per an article in The Economic Times, Power Grid has emerged as the successful bidder to establish Vindhyachal, Varanasi 765kV transmission line, as part of New WR-NR 765 kV Inter-Regional Corridor valuing the project around Rs 10 billion.

Rcom share price is expected to witness some action today after the company got its shareholders’ approval to sell most of its wireless assets to Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd. RCom said that it expects to complete its asset monetization by March, a process which will reduce the company’s debt by Rs 250 billion.

Meanwhile, as per an article in The Livemint, Aditya Birla Group expects savings from the merger between group company Idea Cellular Ltd and Vodafone Group Plc’s India unit to be significantly more than the US$10 billion it forecast in March last year. The benefits accruing out of the Idea-Vodafone merger will increase on account of savings made by both Idea Cellular and Vodafone India Ltd because of synergies in capital and operating expenditure.