Indian share markets continued to witness buying momentum in the afternoon session and closed on record highs. At the closing bell, the BSE Sensex closed higher by 251 points and the NSE Nifty finished higher by 60 points. The S&P BSE Mid Cap finished down by 0.1% while S&P BSE Small Cap finished up by 0.3%. Gains were largely seen in consumer durables stocks, bank stocks and power stocks.

Asian stock markets finished mixed as of the most recent closing prices. The Nikkei 225 gained 0.26%, while the Shanghai Composite & the Hang Seng fell 0.54% and 0.08% respectively. European markets are lower today with shares in Germany off the most. The DAX is down 0.30% while France’s CAC 40 is off 0.25% and London’s FTSE 100 is lower by 0.05%.

Rupee was trading at Rs 63.41 against the US$ in the afternoon session. Oil prices were trading at US$ 64.22 at the time of writing.

Vedanta’s oil and gas vertical Cairn India is planning to invest Rs 370 billion to ramp up crude production at its Barmer oil fields in Rajasthan.

The investment will be made over the next few years, which will enhance the production of crude oil.

The programme will help the company in achieving the production target of 5 lakh barrels oil per day (BOPD) from the Barmer oil fields.

Vedanta share price finished the day down by 0.4% on the BSE.

In news about the economy. According to data released by the Central Statistics Office (CSO), retail inflation as measured by the Wholesale Price Index (WPI) decelerated to 3.58% in December, a marginal drop from of 3.9% in November 2017.

Wholesale inflation rate, measured by the wholesale price index (WPI), is a marker for price movements in bulk buys for traders and broadly mirrors trends in shop-end prices.

The index portrays new series of WPI data released by the government earlier this fiscal, with 2011-12 as the base year, replacing existing the base year of 2004-05.