Sensex, Nifty End Modestly Higher In Rangebound Trade

(RTTNews) - Indian shares eked out modest gains on Thursday, with firm global cues and upbeat earnings news from the likes of UltraTech Cement and Adani Energy helping underpin investor sentiment.

The upside was capped due to uncertainty surrounding U.S. President Donald Trump's trade policies and tariff threats.

The dollar recovered from early weakness but remained in a light trading range as investors looked ahead to Trump's keynote address at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, for further direction.

The newly inaugurated president is due to address WEF via video link at 5 p.m. Davos time.

The benchmark S&P/BSE Sensex ended the session up 115.39 points, or 0.15 percent, at 76,520.38 while the broader NSE Nifty index closed up 50 points, or 0.22 percent, at 23,205.35.

The mid-cap and small-cap indexes on the BSE surged 1.8 percent and 0.8 percent, respectively, outperforming frontline indexes.

The market breadth was positive on the BSE, with 2,123 shares advancing while 1,839 shares declined, and 105 shares ended unchanged.

UltraTech Cement soared 6.7 percent as consolidated net profit fell in the third quarter but beat analysts' estimates.

Sun Pharma, Shriram Finance, Wipro and Grasim surged 2-3 percent.

Coforge soared 11.5 percent and Persistent Systems jumped 10.3 percent after posting better-than-expected Q3 earnings.