Indian Shares End Choppy Session Little Changed

(RTTNews) - Indian shares ended modestly higher in choppy trade on Thursday after Israel and Lebanon agreed to implement a ceasefire and continue negotiations for a broader peace agreement.

After a fourth round of U.S.-mediated talks, Israel and Lebanon have agreed to renew their fragile ceasefire following days of bombardment and drone strikes.

According to a joint statement, the agreement was "contingent on a complete cessation" of attacks by the Iran-backed armed group Hezbollah, among other conditions.

After slipping into negative territory earlier in the session, benchmark indexes Sensex and Nifty recovered to end marginally higher, helped by a weaker dollar in international markets and lower crude oil prices.

Continued foreign investor selling, weekly BSE F&O expiry-related pressure, hawkish Fed bets and caution ahead of the RBI's monetary policy announcement scheduled for Friday served to cap the potential upside in broader markets.

The BSE Sensex ended largely changed at 74,360.01 after a choppy session. The NSE Nifty index also ended little changed with a positive bias at 23,416.55 while the BSE mid-cap and small-cap indexes rose by half a percent and 0.6 percent, respectively.

The market breadth was strong on the BSE, with 2,244 shares rising while 1,938 shares declined and 179 shares closed unchanged.

Among the top gainers, Eternal and Titan Company both surged around 3 percent while ITC, Tech Mahindra, SBI and ICICI Bank all ended up around 1 percent.

IT stocks extended losses from the previous session, with HCL Technologies falling around 1 percent and Infosys losing 1.8 percent.