Sensex declines in early morning trade

Mumbai: Reversing early gains, the Sensex today declined nearly 22 points today as weak global cues turned investors cautious.

Besides, the market sentiment was hit by the Reserve Bank pegging GDP growth for the current fiscal lower at 7.3 per cent and saying that rush for farm loan waivers may have inflationary spillovers.

The 30-share Sensex was trading 21.53 points lower at 31,249.75 in the early deals. The NSE Nifty fell 14.85 points to 9,649.05. Among the laggards were sectors such as IT, Tech, Realty, Oil and Gas, Power, Bank and PSU, falling up to 2.31 per cent.

The market today opened on a positive note, helped by a string of factors like better monsoon forecast and the status quo on policy rates by the RBI yesterday.

The Reserve Bank yesterday kept repo rate unchanged, as widely expected, at 6.25 per cent and the reverse repo at 6 per cent.

The 30-share barometer in the opening trade rose by 83.23 points, or 0.26 per cent, to 31,354.51. The gauge had gained 80.72 points in the previous session. The NSE Nifty too gained 14.40 points, or 0.15 per cent, to 9,678.30 in early trade today.

Cautious trade in Global peers ahead of UK election and testimony from sacked FBI head James Comey on his probe into Donald Trump's links to Russia also influenced sentiment, brokers said.

In the rest of Asia, Japan's Nikkei gained 0.05 per cent while Hong Kong's Hang Seng up 0.03 per cent in early trade today. Shanghai Composite was trading 0.03 per cent higher. The US Dow Jones Industrial Average ended 0.18 per cent higher in yesterday's trade.