Indian Shares End Off Day's Highs

(RTTNews) - Indian shares ended modestly higher on Thursday, after having fallen heavily in the previous session amid escalating hostilities in the Middle East.

Investors bought the dip after the U.S. military attacked Iranian targets for a second straight day and President Donald Trump said the flare-up will end very quickly.

U.S. airstrikes hit about 90 targets across Iran over the past two days as Tehran targeted Gulf states.

In a social media post, the U.S. Central Command said the additional strikes were launched "to further degrade their ability to threaten freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz."

U.S. President Trump claimed any renewed fighting with Iran would end very quickly and that the U.S. is not looking for a long-term war.

"I don't think it's going to start again. If they hit, we hit ten times harder. Anything that happens will get over very quickly and we'll make things safer, even for oil," Trump said.

The 30-share BSE Sensex hit an intraday high of 77,327 before giving up some gains to settle up by 238.22 points, or 0.31 percent, at 76,741.82.

The NSE Nifty index closed 80.75 points, or 0.34 percent, higher at 23,962.80, after having hit a high of 24,135 earlier.

The BSE mid-cap and small-cap indexes jumped 1.4 percent and 1.7 percent, respectively.

The market breadth was strong on the BSE, with 2,900 shares rising while 1,338 shares fell and 178 shares closed unchanged.

Among the top gainers, HDFC Bank, UltraTech, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Eternal, Indigo, Bajaj FinServ, Bharti Airtel and Sun Pharma surged 1-3 percent.