The Sensex edged lower in the afternoon trades on Tuesday on the back of selling in oil & gas, financial and technology stocks.
The Nifty slipped below its important psychological level of 8,750 owing to selling in heavyweights like HDFC, HUL, ONGC and Wipro.
Meanwhile, shares of telecom companies were in high demand. Shares of Bharti Airtel jumped as much as 11 per cent to Rs 382. Idea Cellular and Reliance Communication also surged over 5 per cent as analysts pointed that the bidding intensity in the ongoing spectrum auction has reduced drastically.
Bidding price for the premium 900MHz, which can carry both voice services as well as high-speed 3G data and has more reach than the 1800 and 2100 MHz bands on offer, rose just 1 per cent on Monday. Analysts also said that telecom firms will hike tariffs to recoup the high prices they are likely to pay for buying spectrum.
Oil & gas, real estate, banking and power stocks were facing selling pressure. The respective indices were down 0.3-1 per cent each.
From the Nifty basket, Bharti Airtel was the top gainer followed by Coal India, Bajaj Auto, Lupin, Mahindra & Mahindra, Zee Entertainment, NMDC, Punjab National Bank and ICICI Bank.
While, HDFC, DLF, Kotak Mahindra Bank, HUL, Power Grid, ONGC, GAIL India and Wipro were trading weaker by over 1 per cent each.
At 1:30 p.m., the Sensex was down 35 points at 28,810 and the Nifty declined 16 points to 8,740.
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