Indian shares gain along with Asia; Sun Pharma advances

Indian shares gained on Thursday, tracking Asian shares following all-time highs for the U.S. stocks after minutes showed caution at the Federal Reserve over the timing of future rate hike.

sensex
A man looks at a screen across a road displaying the Sensex on the facade of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) building in Mumbai, India. REUTERS

Indian shares gained on Thursday, tracking Asian shares following all-time highs for the U.S. stocks after minutes showed caution at the Federal Reserve over the timing of future rate hike.

Asian stocks were near a decade high on Thursday, riding the bull run in global equity markets, while the dollar sagged.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose to its highest since December 2007 and was last up 0.2 percent.

Fed officials debated hard last month over whether forces holding inflation down were persistent or temporary, with several policy makers looking for stronger evidence of price gains before supporting a third interest-rate increase this year.

At 0600 GMT, the S&P BSE Sensex gained 0.32 percent at 31,937 while the broader NSE Nifty rose 0.39 percent to 10,024.

Among the top Sensex gainers: Hindustan Unilever rose 1.8 percent, Sun Pharma added 1.7 percent, NTPC gained 1.5 percent while Mahindra and Mahindra advanced 1.4 percent.

Indiabulls Real Estate jumped 6 percent after the company said it will buy Singapore listed IPIT's unit at S$0.90 each.

Sun Pharmaceuticals Industries advanced 3 percent after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration cleared its manufacturing facility at Dadra.

But Lakshmi Vilas Bank fell 5 percent after the bank reported an 84 percent decline in its September quarter net profit.

Indusind Bank gained 0.2 percent ahead of its September quarter earnings later in the day.

Market breadth was in the favour of gainers, with about 2 stocks advancing to every 1 stock that declined.

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