Indian Shares End Off Day’s Highs

Indian shares ended Wednesday’s session flat to slightly higher, trimming early gains due to profit taking in the PSU banking space.

The benchmark ended the session up 50.15 points, or 0.06 percent, at 82,276.07, after having surged to a high of 82,957.91 earlier on the back of firm cues from global markets as new U.S. tariffs came into effect at 10 percent under a different legal framework.

The broader NSE Nifty index hit an intraday high of 25,652.60 before closing up 57.85 points, or 0.23 percent, at 25,482.50, led by banking, metal and IT stocks.

Caution emerged at higher levels after reports suggested that the Trump administration has imposed a solar import duty of 126 percent on India, threatening to derail the India-U.S. interim trade deal.

The BSE mid-cap and small-cap indexes gained 0.7 percent and half a percent, respectively.

The market breadth was weak on the BSE, with 2,131 shares falling while 2,066 shares rose and 173 shares closed unchanged.

IT stocks topped the gainers list, with Infosys, Tech Mahindra, TCS and HCL Technologies rallying 1-2 percent after Anthropic announced new partnerships, helping ease artificial-intelligence disruption concerns.

The AI startup launched new updates to Claude Cowork that allow companies to integrate the productivity tool into a host of enterprise apps.

Pharma, metal, automobile and banking stocks also gained ground, with ICICI Bank, Axis Bank, Maruti Suzuki, India, Mahindra & Mahindra, Sun Pharma and Tata Steel rising between 1 percent and 2.6 percent.

On the losing side, ITC, Bharti Airtel, Eternal, Adani Ports, SBI and Reliance Industries fell 1-2 percent.