Indian shares advanced on Thursday, in tandem with their Asian peers, amid indications that the United States was close to a deal to raise its debt ceiling.

The Nifty 50 was up 0.33% at 18,242.30 as of 9:44 a.m. IST, while the S&P BSE Sensex rose 0.37% to 61,791.68.

Asia-Pacific shares advanced after U.S. President Joe Biden and the Republican Party's House of Representatives speaker Kevin McCarthy vowed to avoid an economically catastrophic default.

The Nifty's gains come after two sessions of declines as traders booked profits booking after a gain of nearly 4% since mid-April when the earnings season started.

Besides some stable earnings, the sustained buying by foreign institutional investors (FIIs) has also supported domestic equities.

"The silver lining from yesterday's weak stock market was that FIIs remained as net buyers on Dalal Street," said Prashanth Tapse, senior vice president (research) at Mehta Equities.

FIIs have been net buyers for the past 15 sessions, the longest such streak since December 2020, purchasing nearly 226 billion rupees ($2.76 billion) worth of shares over that period.

Nine of the 13 major sectoral indexes logged gains, with high-weightage financials rising 0.7%.

The metals index climbed over 1%, aided by a 6% rise in Jindal Stainless Ltd after the company reported record sales for the fourth quarter.

Honeywell Automation India Ltd jumped 7% after its fourth-quarter profit jumped 54%.

On the other hand, Whirlpool of India Ltd lost over 4% after reporting a slide in its profit due to weak sales.

The companies due to report results on Thursday include State Bank of India Ltd, ITC Ltd, IndiGo and GAIL (India) Ltd. ($1 = 81.7800 Indian rupees) (Reporting by Bharath Rajeswaran in Bengaluru; Editing by Savio D'Souza)