Telecom stocks tank up to 8.5% amid mobile spectrum auction

Telecom stocks today fell sharply by up to 8.5 per cent amid fears of heightened competition in the ongoing mobile spectrum auction.
Shares of Idea Cellular tanked 8.43 per cent, while Reliance Communications lost 3.95 per cent on the BSE.
Similarly, shares of Bharti Airtel fell by 2.57 per cent.
Spectrum auction today entered the 43rd round of bidding on seventh day after starting off from Rs 56,554 crore in terms of value, ensuring minimum revenue of about Rs 16,750 crore in the current fiscal.
Eight telecom firms, including Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Reliance Jio Infocomm, are in the fray in the auction.

Bids worth around Rs 33,082.58 crore are received for 1,800 Mhz and Rs 23,472.34 crore for 900 Mhz.
CAG in 2010 had computed notional loss of Rs 1.76 lakh crore by comparing price of 1800 MHz band spectrum with 3G price.
Meanwhile, the broader market was also weak with the benchmark Sensex falling 42.29 points to close at 20,334.27.