Telecom stocks gain

Stocks held firm in early afternoon trade on sustained buying demand in index pivotals. At 12:28 IST, the barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex, was up 307.08 points or 0.84% at 36,978.51. The Nifty 50 index was up 110.10 points or 1% at 11,145.50. Telecom stocks gained.

The Sensex was currently trading below the psychological 37,000 mark after hitting intraday high just above that level in mid-morning trade. Trading for the week began on upbeat note on buying demand in index pivotals. The Sensex held firm in morning trade. Key benchmark indices extended gains and hit fresh intraday high in mid-morning trade.

The S&P BSE Mid-Cap index was up 1.55%. The S&P BSE Small-Cap index was up 1.32%. Both these indices outperformed the Sensex.

The market breadth, indicating the overall health of the market, was strong. On the BSE, 1616 shares rose and 770 shares fell. A total of 157 shares were unchanged.

TCS fell 0.51%. TCS has launched a new version of the Metadata Registrv and Transformation (MRT) Platform that helps life sciences companies streamline their clinical data management by automating clinical study design and set up and conversion of clinical data into standard formats for greater interoperability across the clinical trial phases. The announcement was made during market hours today, 11 March 2019.

Telecom stocks gained. Bharti Airtel (up 4.16%), Vodafone Idea (up 4.32%), MTNL (up 1.38%) and Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra) (up 3.49%) rose. Reliance Communications (down 2.91%) fell.

Shares of Bharti Infratel rose 3.01%. Bharti Infratel is a provider of tower and related infrastructure and is a unit of Bharti Airtel.

Meanwhile, Lok Sabha elections will be held in seven phases from April 11 to May 19 and counting will take place on May 23. However, elections for the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly, will not be held along with the Lok Sabha polls due to security reasons, the Election Commission said on Sunday.

Overseas, Asian stocks are trading mixed as growth worries intensified and investors awaited more details about US - China trade talks. US stocks finished lower Friday for a fifth session in a row, after a disappointing jobs report added to concerns about slowing global growth.

Labor Department announced the U.S. economy added just 20,000 new jobs in February. The unemployment rate fell to 3.8% from 4%, while workers saw an 11 cent-an-hour increase in average hourly earnings, the largest gain since the end of the 2009 recession.

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