Indian Shares Edge Higher In Cautious Trade

(RTTNews) - Indian shares eked out modest gains in cautious trade on Thursday as investors weighed a Federal Reserve's hawkish rate hike as well as tightening U.S. sanctions on Russian oil against falling crude oil prices in international markets.

The U.S. House has passed a sanctions bill that could allow President Trump to impose up to 100 percent tariffs on major buyers of Russian oil, introducing fresh uncertainty into ongoing bilateral trade talks with the United States.

The benchmark 30-share BSE Sensex was up 126 points, or 0.2 percent, at 74,465 in early trade while the NSE Nifty index edged up by 71 points, or 0.3 percent, to 23,288.

Among the top gainers, Axis Bank, Mahindra & Mahindra, ITC, BEL, Bajaj Finance and Eternal surged 1-3 percent.

LT Foods gained 1 percent on news it would buy out joint venture partner Kameda Seika's 49 percent stake in Kameda LT Fodds for Rs. 1.12 crore in cash.

Kalpataru Projects rose over 1 percent after its arm Linjemontage priced its Stockholm IPO.

Granules India rallied 2.6 percent. The promoter group has fully honored its capital commitment under the preferential warrant issue by clearing the final Rs. 1,093 crore tranche.

Alembic Pharma advanced 2.4 percent after clearing an unannounced FDA onsite bioequivalence inspection at its Vadodara facility with zero observations.

Shriram Finance climbed 1.3 percent after announcing a $500 million bond buyback.