After opening the day marginally higher, share markets in India continued the momentum and are presently trading in green. Sectoral indices are trading on a mixed note, with stocks in the IT sector and stocks in the energy sector witnessing maximum buying interest. While stocks in the metals sector are leading the losses.

The BSE Sensex is trading up by 180 points (up 0.5%) and the NSE Nifty is trading up by 40 points (up 0.4%). Meanwhile, the BSE Mid Cap index is trading up by 0.3%, while the BSE Small Cap index is trading up by 0.6%. The rupee is trading at 63.77 to the US$.

In news from stocks in the oil and gas sector. ONGC share price and HPCL share price are in focus today amid news about the mode of acquisition of HPCL by ONGC.

Oil & Natural Gas Corporation will use a mix of debt, cash reserves, and proceeds from a planned sale of stakes in IndianOil and GAIL to fund its acquisition of HPCL.

ONGC needs to pay Rs 369 billion for the government's 51.11% stake in HPCL by January-end. The deal would make state-run ONGC the third largest refiner in India, after Indian Oil and Reliance Industries, and give it control over nearly a fourth of filling stations.

ONGC's 13.77% stake in IndianOil and 4.86% in GAIL can fetch about Rs 300 billion at current market prices. In addition, ONGC has about Rs 500 billion of sanctioned loans at favorable terms

For funding the deal, the company's order of priority is cash reserve, sale of stakes in IndianOil and GAIL, followed by debt, according to news reports.The deal is also likely to help the government achieve its divestment target. At current valuations, this deal would fetch the government more than Rs 300 billion, surpassing its strategic sale target for the year.

Centre Gets Cracking on Disinvestment

After three years of underachieving its disinvestment targets, the government is back with a bang. This time, it wants to focus on strategic stake sales of non-public sector units (PSUs) and areas where disinvestment has so far been poor. FY15-16 saw no disinvestment through this route.

For FY18, the total budgeted disinvestment target has been set at Rs 725 billion. Of this, Rs 465 billion is expected to come from minority stake sales, buybacks, mergers, public listings, and the CPSE ETFs. Rs 150 billion is likely to come from strategic sales. And the balance Rs 110 billion from listing of state-owned general insurance companies.

At the time of writing, ONGC share price was trading up by 3.5%, while HPCL share price was trading down by 3.5%.

Moving on to news from stocks in the IPO segment. Apollo Microsystems in focus today as it debuted on the bourses with over 74% gains on its listing price.

The company's Rs 1.5 billion IPO saw huge oversubscription of 248 times between January 10 and January 12.

The company, which caters primarily to the defense and aerospace sectors, had set an issue price for its initial public offer at Rs 275 per share

At the time of writing, Apollo Micro Systems share price was trading around 450 levels. Up 65% from its IPO price.

Apollo Micro Systems Ltd is Hyderabad based company engaged in the business of electronic, electro-mechanical, engineering designs, manufacturing, and supply. The company designs, develops and sells high-performance, mission and time critical solutions to Defense, Space and Home Land Security for Ministry of Defense, government controlled public sector undertakings and private sectors.

The company offers custom-built COTS (commercially off-the-shelf) solutions based on specific requirements to defense and space customers.