Sensex falls 75 points, Nifty slips below 9,600-mark 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 on Thursday as participants trimmed their positions, triggered by lower gross domestic product (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% in 2016- 17, the year in which 87% of the currency was demonetised, despite a very good showing by the agricultural sector.

The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was 6.1% 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% 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%, to trade at 31,070.47.

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Stocks of oil and 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%, 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% 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 on Wednesday, as per provisional data.

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

The US Dow Jones Industrial Average ended 0.10% down in Wednesday's trade. 

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