Domestic shares rose for seventh day in a row, logging modest gains on sustained buying demand in index pivotals. Sentiment was boosted by an overnight slide in crude oil prices and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) announcing additional open market bond purchase.

The Sensex rose 137.25 points or 0.38% to settle at 36,484.33, its highest closing level since 1 October 2018. The index rose 207.91 points, or 0.57% at the day's high of 36,554.99. The index rose 34.79 points, or 0.10% at the day's low of 36,381.87.

The Nifty 50 index rose 58.60 points or 0.54% to settle at 10,967.30, its highest closing level since 1 October 2018. The index rose 76.45 points, or 0.70% at the day's high of 10,985.15. The index rose 19.30 points, or 0.18% at the day's low of 10,928.

The S&P BSE Mid-Cap index rose 1.50%. The S&P BSE Small-Cap index rose 1.09%. Both these indices outperformed the Sensex.

The market breadth, indicating the overall health of the market, was strong. On the BSE, 1644 shares rose and 979 shares fell. A total of 160 shares were unchanged.

Among the sectoral indices on BSE, the S&P BSE Realty index (up 3.11%), the S&P BSE Telecom index (up 1.90%) and the S&P BSE Power index (up 1.36%), outperformed the Sensex. The S&P BSE IT index (down 1.06%), the S&P BSE Teck index (down 0.68%) and the S&P BSE Consumer Durables index (up 0.07%), underperformed the Sensex.

Asian Paints (up 3.39%), Axis Bank (up 3.18%), State Bank of India (up 2.68%), Maruti Suzuki India (up 2.04%), ITC (up 1.76%) and HDFC (up 1.28%), were the major Sensex gainers.

Sun Pharmaceutical Industries (down 2.1%), IndusInd Bank (down 1.7%), Infosys (down 1.64%), TCS (down 1.03%) and Vedanta (down 0.96%), were the major Sensex losers.

Auto major M&M gained 1.26%. M&M today unveiled the brand name of its highly-anticipated new offering, code-named S201, as the XUV300. The XUV300 will be manufactured at the company's manufacturing facility at Nasik, in Maharashtra and will be launched in the 1st half of February 2019. The announcement was made during market hours today, 19 December 2018.

State-run NTPC rose 1.49%. NTPC announced that unit 6 of 500 MW capacity of Feroze Gandhi Unchahar Thermal Power Station has been synchronized with grid after boiler restoration. The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 18 December 2018.

Shares of most IT companies fell after rupee appreciated against the US dollar. HCL Technologies (down 2.77%), Hexaware Technologies (down 2.14%), MphasiS (down 1.69%), Infosys (down 1.64%), Persistent Systems (down 0.56%) and Tech Mahindra (down 0.01%), edged lower. Oracle Financial Services Software (up 0.55%), MindTree (up 0.92%) and Wipro (up 1.49%), edged higher.

A firm rupee adversely affects operating profit margin of IT firms as the sector derives a lion's share of revenue from exports.

IT major TCS fell 1.03%. TCS has launched a next-generation, private cloud in Canada to help forward-thinking enterprises move rapidly along the digital maturity curve. TCS' Enterprise Cloud Platform (ECP) is a dynamic solution stack that provides multiple, flexible cloud infrastructure options including IaaS, PaaS, and state-of-the-art hybrid cloud capabilities which enable highly secure orchestration between on premise and public cloud environments. The announcement was made after market hours today, 19 December 2018.

In the foreign exchange market, the rupee edged higher against the dollar. The partially convertible rupee was hovering at 70.35, compared with its close of 70.44 during the previous trading session.

In the global commodities markets, Brent for February 2019 settlement was up 34 cents at $56.60 a barrel. The contract slumped $3.35 a barrel or 5.62% to settle at $56.26 a barrel during the previous trading session due to fears of oversupply and deteriorating demand.

India imports majority of its crude requirements and a decline in crude eases concerns on fiscal deficit, inflation and gives more room for the government to boost growth through spending on infrastructure.

On the macro front, on a review of the evolving liquidity conditions, RBI has decided to scale up the amounts to be purchased in the remaining two Open Market Operations (OMO) auctions scheduled in December 2018 to Rs 15000 crore each. Consequently, the total injection of durable liquidity for the month of December 2018 would amount to Rs 50000 crore.

Further, based on an assessment of the durable liquidity needs going forward, RBI has decided to conduct purchase of Government Securities under OMOs for an aggregate amount of Rs 50000 crore in the month of January 2019. The operations will be conducted through five auctions of Rs 10000 crore each.

The liquidity conditions will continue to be monitored and depending on the assessment, RBI will consider similar quantum of OMO purchases until end of March 2019. The exact calibration of the quantum of OMO would depend on sustained changes in the behaviour of currency in circulation, the magnitude of sterilisation operations for RBI's forex operations and other relevant factors.

Overseas, European stocks inched slightly higher while Asian stocks ended mixed Wednesday ahead of a highly anticipated Federal Reserve meeting that is expected to set the tone for interest rates next year.

On Wednesday, Japan reported that its trade balance in November was a deficit of 737.3 billion yen, from 450.1 billion yen in the previous month. This is its fourth deficit in last five months. The country's exports broadly slowed, partly due to weakening demand from China. Japanese exports rose 0.1% from a year earlier, as compared to October's 8.2% gain.

US stocks nudged higher on Tuesday in a volatile day as technology and consumer-focused companies climbed.

The Federal Reserve wraps up its final policy meeting of 2018 on Wednesday. The Federal Open Market Committee is expected to raise its short-term interest rate by a modest quarter-point to a range of 2.25% to 2.5%. Investors are closely watching the Federal Reserve monetary policy guidance for 2019. The central bank forecasts three more rate hikes in 2019, but softer global growth could cause a shift in its hawkish stance. The Bank of Japan's monetary policy decision is due Thursday, followed by a briefing from Governor Haruhiko Kuroda. A Bank of England decision is also due on Thursday.