Sensex Trades In The Red; PSU Stocks Top Losers

After opening the day in red, share markets in India witnessed choppy trading activity throughout the day and are presently below the dotted line. Sectoral indices are trading mixed with stocks in the PSU sector and stocks in the realty sector trading in red. While stocks in the consumer durables sector are trading in green.

The BSE Sensex is down by 202 points (down 0.6%) and the NSE Nifty is trading down by 70 points (down 0.7%). Meanwhile, the BSE Mid Cap index is trading down by 1.2%, while the BSE Small Cap index is trading down by 1.7%. The rupee is trading at 64.98 to the US$.

Among the most active stocks in the BSE Sensex today are SBI (down 3.4%), Tata Motors (up 0.6%) and ICICI Bank(down 2.7%). Among the BSE 500 stocks, the most active stocks include Jaiprakash Associates (down 8.7%), Suzlon Energy(down 4.7%) and Reliance Communications (down 5%).

In news from stocks in the telecom sector. Reliance Communications (Rcom) share price fell over 7% in today’s trade after the debt laden company faced a blow in attempts to dig itself out of its mounting debts.

An arbitration court has restrained Rcom and two of its companies from transferring or selling any assets without its permission. The tribunal passed the order after Ericsson moved tribunal to recover its unpaid dues.

The order came as a big blow to RCom which had unveiled a plan in December 2017 to sell its wireless assets to Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd, in an effort to trim debt.

RCom owed banks US$ 7 billion as of March 2017 when it last made public its debt numbers, and more to vendors.

Companies in the debt-laden telecom sector have been witnessing a double whammy after the entry of Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd which brought tariffs to rock-bottom and hit the revenue streams of other operators.

Telecom Sector: A decade of Underperformance

The whole telecom business has been an underwhelming story so far. While the telecom subscriber base has increased from 300 million in 2008 to 1.2 billion in 2017, investors have little to cheer. The BSE Sensex has gone up 3.25 times in nine years, but the BSE Telecom Index has not moved an inch from its levels of 2008.