Sensex, Nifty Give Up Sharp Early Gains

(RTTNews) - Indian shares closed higher on Thursday after reports suggested that India and the United States are close to finalizing a long-awaited bilateral trade deal that could sharply lower tariffs on Indian exports to about 15-16 percent from the current average of 50 percent.

Markets, however, ended off their day's highs in the wake of a flare up in trade and geopolitical tensions.

U.S.-China tensions resurfaced after reports suggested that the Trump administration is considering a plan to curb a dizzying array of software-powered exports to China, stoking fresh trade tensions.

Elsewhere, U.S. President Donald Trump imposed Ukraine-related sanctions on Russia for the first time in his second term, sending oil prices soaring.

Oil prices were up more than 5 percent in European trade, rising for a third consecutive session on fears of tightened global supply.

Trump slapped "tremendous" new sanctions on Russia's two largest oil companies in a bid to pressure his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, into ending the war in Ukraine.

In another related development, EU countries today formally adopted a 19th package of sanctions against Russia for its war against Ukraine that includes a ban on Russian liquefied natural gas imports.

The package targets main Russian revenue streams through new energy, financial, and trade measures.

The benchmark BSE Sensex hit a high of 85,290.06 earlier before paring gains to end the session up 130.06 points, or 0.15 percent, at 84,556.40.

Likewise, the broader NSE Nifty index closed up 22.80 points at 25,891.40, after having hit an intraday high of 26,104.20 on optimism over an earnings revival and renewed foreign inflows.

The BSE mid-cap and small-cap indexes ended down 0.2 percent and 0.4 percent, respectively.

The market breadth was weak on the BSE, with 2,409 shares falling while 1,852 shared rose and 128 shares closed unchanged.

IT stocks surged, with TCS, HCL Technologies and Infosys rallying 2-4 percent.

Among the prominent decliners, Reliance Industries, ICICI Bank, Adani Ports, Bharti Airtel, UltraTech Cement and Eternal fell 1-3 percent.

Globally, cues from Asia and Europe were mixed. The dollar strengthened against major peers while gold rebounded from a near two-week low hit earlier.