Market Now: Telecom stocks up; Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular among top gainers

NEW DELHI: Most of the telecom stocks were trading up in Wednesday's afternoon session, helping the BSE Telecom index extend gains for a second consecutive session.

Shares of Vindhya Telelinks (up 5.61 per cent), GTL Infrastructure (up 2.69 per cent) and Tata Communications (up 2.00 per cent) gained over 2 per cent, while stocks such as Bharti Airtel (up 1.93 per cent), Idea Cellular (up 1.82 per cent), Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra) (up 1.64 per cent), Sterlite Technologies (up 1.38 per cent) and ITI (up 1.01 per cent) gained over 1 per cent.

The BSE Telecom index was trading 1.21 per cent up at 1,432 around 1.10 pm (IST), with shares of Bharti Infratel (down 1.08 per cent) as the lone loser.

The index registered the intraday high and low of 1,440 and 1,416, respectively.

Telecom stocks reacted positively to the report that an inter-ministerial panel was set to extend the fee payment tenure of auctioned airwaves and lower interest rate payable on dues.

However, big-ticket changes such as lowering annual license fee and spectrum usage charges (SUC) are unlikely, reported ET on Wednesday.

The overall market remained firm, with broader smallcap and midcap indices outperforming benchmarks.

BSE Consumer Durables index was the only sectoral trading in red.

Bank, pharma, realty and auto stocks were top buying choices of investors.

IT stocks showed volatile temperament, with Tech Mahindra, HCL Technologies and Tata Consultancy Services slipping in trade.

Infosys, however, was gaining on speculations of Nandan Nilekani returning as the head.

In the Nifty50 pack, 32 stocks were trading in green, while 18 stocks were in red.

On BSE, 1,494 stocks were advancing whereas 902 stocks were lagging.

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