Stock Market Investment Strategies - 3G mobile spectrum bids crosses 6634 crores

Bids for a 3G mobile spectrum licences rose 90% from the base price to Rs 6,634.31 crore after 10 days and fifty-eight rounds of bidding. Auction is on for three slots of 3G airwaves in 17 telecom service areas. The auctions for broadband wireless spectrum are scheduled to begin two days after completion of the 3G sale process.

Delhi, Mumbai and regions of Karnataka, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu continued to witness maximum demand. However, almost 50% of the country, the demand for 3G airwaves has been negative.

Overall the auction of 3G and Broadband spectrum put together is likely to fetch somewhere around Rs 44,000-45 ,000 crore.

Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Essar, Reliance Communications, Idea Cellular, Tata Teleservices and Aircel are participating and competing against each other in this process. The auction is likely to continue till the end of next week.

BSE advances by 10 minutes, so what to expect from NSE?

Trading at the Bombay Stock Exchange will now start 10 minutes earlier than usual - at 9.45 a.m. instead of 9.55 a.m.

SEBI in October had given permission for the stock markets to operate between 9 to 5. The brokers and the bankers were not too happy with this decision. So BSE has decided to advance its operating hours in a phased manner. You can expect the NSE to follow suit very soon.

The other thinking was that since FIIs are a big part of for the Indian market. Singapore and Hong Kong go for lunch at 10 am Indian time. If we start the markets at 9:45 am we give the guys in Hong Kong and Singapore to do some trading before they go in for lunch.

Last month, BSE changed the expiry date of monthly index F&O contracts to the third Thursday instead of the last Thursday of each contract month. BSE has also introduced weekly options to bring some interest into the derivative market.

Stock Market Investment Strategies - Telecom stocks, Good time to buy!!!

All telecom stocks have taken a beating in the stock market. Do-Co-Mo started all this with its per second billing plan. All operators came under pressure to comply with per second billing. After DoCoMo it was Airtel which launched with per second billing and then Idea and so on. Everyone seems to be going for per second billing. The operating margins of the telecom companies which was greatly reduced due to the entry of players was even more compressed.

The Central Bureau of Investigation's probe into the 2G spectrum allocation scam further pulled down the telecom stocks. This scam has stopped the allocation of the spectrum for 3G which was to be held in a couple of months time. Presently all telecom stocks seems to be playing the number's game to attract more customers which would enable them to get larger share in the spectrum.

Bharti Airtel also saw disappointing Q2 results which reduced the stock to Rs 292.90 a 52-week low. Reliance communications also saw its stock value decrease to 176.

This presents a great opportunity for the investor to invest in telecom stocks. These stocks seem to have bottomed out already. If you have a long term view it would fetch good returns. However, in a couple of months you would be a able to see a clear picture of where the telecom stocks are heading.