Erasing early losses, shares of MMTC jumped over 7 per cent in the afternoon trade today as the company's stake sale got deferred on concerns over valuation of equity.

After making a weak opening and falling over 5 per cent to Rs 280.25 - its 52-week low in the morning trade, the stock bounced back 7.55 per cent to Rs 318.85 on the BSE following the announcement.

At NSE also, the scrip climbed 7 per cent to Rs 317.70.

An inter-ministerial panel today deferred government's 9.33 per cent stake sale in state-owned trading company MMTC on concerns over valuation of company's equity.

The issue was planned to hit the markets on March 14.

The Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) on disinvestment, headed by Finance Minister P Chidambaram was slated to decided on the base price of the MMTC stake sale.

The government was expecting to raise somewhere between Rs 250-300 crore through the stake sale.

Meanwhile, after a firm start at 19,697.84, the BSE 30- stock index, Sensex, tumbled by 140.46 points to 19,505.75 at 1330 hrs, with fall in bluechips in banking and IT sectors.