Why Did Bharti Airtel Fall In Trade On 13 Aug?

On Thursday, shares of Bharti Airtel declined over 4 percent after a sales note from Emkay Global Financial Services mentioned that the stock's weightage in MSCI index was cut by 1.75 percent. The note said that while there have been no additions or deletions from the MSCI Indices, weightages of certain stocks were cut or raised.

The weight of the telecom operator on the MSCI India and MSCI EM indices were cut by half from 3.5 percent to 1.8 percent, due to which brokerage reports suggest that there have could be selling between $300-500 million in Bharti Airtel.

A JP Morgan report cited by CNBC-TV18 said that the company's MSCI weight deduction is surprising and MSCI may have picked up incorrect info from the NSDL site.

It said that Bharti Airtel has already approved the FDI (foreign direct investment) limit hike to 100 percent whereas MSCI assumed the limit at 49 percent.

It is likely that MSCI will give some clarification going forward and the weight reduction might not actually happen. Hence, some experts believe that the MSCI decision can be reversed.

Shares of the telco pared losses in the afternoon session and closed 2.04 percent lower at Rs 536.05.