Sensex down 75 points on weak macroeconomic data

The BSE Sensex fell over 75 points to 31,070 and the Nifty slipped below 9,600-mark in early trade today as participants trimmed their positions, triggered by lower GDP numbers and core infrastructure sectors growth.

Trading sentiment suffered a setback after macroeconomic indicators such as GDP numbers and core sector growth showed that the country's economic growth has slowed down.

India's economic growth slowed to 7.1 per cent in 2016- 17, the year in which 87 per cent of the currency was demonetised, despite a very good showing by the agricultural sector.

The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was 6.1 per in the January-March quarter, the immediate three months after the demonetisation was affected on November 9, 2016.The growth of eight core sectors declined to 2.5 per cent in April, mainly due to lower coal, crude oil and cement productions, too dampened trading sentiment, brokers said.

The 30-share index, which had lost 13.60 points in



the previous session, fell by another 75.33 points, or 0.24 per cent, to trade at 31,070.47.Stocks of oil&gas, metal, IT, banking, teck, PSU and capital goods led the losses.

The NSE Nifty was also trading lower by 22.80 points, or 0.23 per cent, at 9,598.45.

Shares of state-run oil marketing companies such as BPCL, HPCL and IOC were trading in negative zone with losses up to 1.97 per cent despite a hike in petrol and diesel prices.

Meanwhile, Foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) bought shares worth Rs 1,048.93 crore, while domestic institutional investors (DIIs) sold shares worth a net Rs 939.54 crore yesterday, as per provisional data.

Asian cues were mixed with Shanghai Composite Index falling 0.40 per cent, while Japan's Nikkei up 0.04 per cent in early trade. Hong Kong's Hang Seng up 0.45 per cent.

The US Dow Jones Industrial Average ended 0.10 per cent down in yesterday's trade.