Sensex reverses initial gains, falls 131 points in late morning trades

The benchmark BSE Sensex reversed early gains and was trading 131 points down at 25,358.71 in the late morning session on selling in banking, auto, telecom and financial stocks on forecast of a delay in monsoon.

The Sensex resumed up on Monday morning at 25,528.80 and moved up further to a high of 25,606.92 on initial heavy buying on the back of good foreign capital inflows.

However, it dropped immediately to 25,358.71 at 1100 hrs, showing a loss of 130.86 points or 0.51%.

The NSE 50-share Nifty also dropped 37.15 points or 0.48% to 7,777.75 at 1100 hrs.

Major losers were SBI (5.08%), ICICI Bank (3.31%), Bharti Airtel (2.56%), Bajaj Auto (2.10%) and ONGC (1.89%).

However, the shares of Dr Reddy's were up 3.33% followed by Asian Paints 1.11%, Lupin 0.67% and Infosys 0.65%.

Overseas, Asian stocks logged gains, shrugging off soft Chinese data released over the weekend. China's investment, factory output and retail sales all grew more slowly than expected in April, adding to doubts about whether the world's second-largest economy is stabilizing.

Meanwhile, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) on Sunday said the monsoon onset over Kerala this year is likely to be slightly delayed.

Foreign investors sold shares worth Rs 1,493.88 crore on Friday as per the provisional data.

At 1215 hours, the benchmark index Sensex was dealing at 25,399.04 points, down 90.53 points or 0.36%.