BENGALURU: Indian shares closed higher on Tuesday, led by a jump in auto stocks, but surrendered a lot of their gains in the final hour of trade due to a drop in financials on concerns of moderating earnings growth.

The blue-chip NSE Nifty 50 ended 0.15% higher to 21,544.85 points, while the S&P BSE Sensex added just 0.04% to close at 71,386.21.

The two indexes had risen nearly 1% earlier in the session.

Bajaj Auto closed up 1.6%, and hit a record high earlier, after approving a share buyback proposal. It helped power the auto index 0.9% higher.

IT stocks added 0.4%, reversing the previous session’s losses, while realty stocks hit fresh record highs for the fifth session in a row.

But most of that was outweighed by a 0.4% drop in financials . The index, which carries the heaviest weightage among the 13 main sectors, had sunk 1.03% on Monday on worries of a slowdown in banks’ earnings growth in fiscal 2025.

Still, analysts expect the market to mostly drift until the earnings season kicks in.

“The near-term directionality will be solely dependent on the upcoming macroeconomic data and earnings,” said Sanjiv Hota, vice president and head of research at Sharekhan by BNP Paribas.