Indian share markets witnessed buying interest during closing hours and ended on a positive note. Gains were seen in the telecom sector, finance sector and metal sector, while IT stocks and consumer durable stocks witnessed selling pressure.

At the closing bell, the BSE Sensex stood higher by 181 points (up 0.5%) and the NSE Nifty closed higher by 55 points (up 0.5%). The BSE Mid Cap index ended the day up 0.5% and the BSE Small Cap index ended the day up by 0.1%.

Asian stock markets finished on a positive note. As of the most recent closing prices, the Hang Seng was up by 2.3% and the Shanghai Composite was up by 2.1%. The Nikkei 225 was down 2.6%.

The rupee was trading at 69.78 against the US$.

The rupee strengthened tracking gains in Asian currencies as the dollar fell on weak US manufacturing data.

In the news from the retail sector, Future retail share price was in focus today after the government tightened rules for e-commerce companies.

The government last week announced changes to e-commerce policy to check predatory pricing and deep discounting.

Shares of the company have plunged as much as 21% in eight trading sessions on back of the above news.

In the news from the IT sector, Mphasis share price was in focus today as the company has extinguished 73,20,501 fully paid up equity shares of Rs 10 each in dematerialized form and 54 fully paid equity shares of Rs 10 each in physical form consequent to a conclusion of buyback of 73,20,555 equity shares of the company.

Further to the above, the paid-up share capital of the company, post buyback, is 1,86,09,65,530 equity shares of Rs 10 each.

In another news, Wipro share price is also considering a share buyback of up to $1-1.2 billion in the January-March quarter.

Reportedly, the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) is currently looking at Wipro's proposal of merging Wipro Technologies Austria, Wipro Information Technologies Austria, NewLogic Technologies SARL and Appirio India Cloud Solutions with the company.

A buyback can only be done once in 12 months and Wipro last had a share buyback programme in November-December 2017. Like Infosys share price, Wipro is coming off the one-year temporary prohibition for a share buyback and is expected to buy back shares at a 20-25% premium to the current share price.

Speaking of buybacks, the number of buyback offers in 2017-18 were at an all-time high. Never, in the last two decades, had Indian markets seen fifty-nine companies announcing buyback plans.

But what is truly surprising is that unlike in the past, the buybacks this time seem skewed in favor of short-term investors rather than long-term ones.

Who Benefits from Such Buybacks?

We believe, as a shareholder in cash-rich companies, you should not only be wary of expensive buybacks. But if possible use it to your advantage to rake in some cash.

Moving on to the news from the commodity space, oil prices rose by more than 1%, shaking off earlier losses, after China said it would hold talks with the US government next week to look for solutions to a trade dispute between the world's two biggest economies.

The two nations have been locked in a trade war for much of the past year, disrupting the flow of hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of goods and stoking fears of a global economic slowdown.

Crude oil prices, however, are on a decline over the last few weeks over concerns of a supply glut.

Oil prices fell in early trade after the US showed signs of following Asia into an economic slowdown, although supply cuts by producer club the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) kept declines in check.

OPEC oil supply fell by 460,000 barrels per day (bpd) between November and December, to 32.7 million bpd, as top exporter Saudi Arabia made an early start to a supply-limiting accord, while Iran and Libya posted involuntary declines.