NEW DELHI: The S&P BSE Telecom index was trading 0.44 per cent down at 1,626 around 02:30 pm (IST) on Friday, with shares of Aksh Optifibre (down 8.67 per cent), Reliance Communications (down 6 per cent) and Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra) (down 4.89 per cent) as the top losers.

Shares of Mahanagar Telephone Nigam (down 1.49 per cent), Himachal Futuristic Communications (down 0.69 per cent), Bharti Infratel (down 0.69 per cent) and Bharti Airtel (down 0.55 per cent) were also in the red in the index around that time.

However, shares of Tejas Networks (up 6.22 per cent), Vindhya Telelinks (up 1.72 per cent), OnMobile Global (up 1.36 per cent), Tata Communications (up 0.86 per cent) and Idea Cellular (up 0.52 per cent) were trading up around that time.

Equity benchmark BSE Sensex was 42 points down at 33,209, while the NSE Nifty50 index was 23 points down at 10,286.

Among the 51 stocks in the Nifty50 index, 16 were trading in the green, while 34 were in the red.

State Bank of India, Larsen & Toubro, Hindustan Unilever, Mahindra & Mahindra, ICICI Bank and Bajaj Auto were among the top gainers in the Sensex index.

Tata Motors, Asian Paints, Reliance Industries, Sun Pharma, Adani Ports, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Tata Consultancy Services and HDFC were among the top losers.