Sensex opens 180 points higher led by banks

Mumbai, Oct 7 (IANS) Sensex opened over 180 points higher on Monday after the benchmark ended lower for the last five sessions.At 10.28 a.m., led by recovery in bank and financial stocks, the Sensex was trading 201.87 points higher at 37,875.18.It opened at 37,853.80 from its Friday's close of 37,673.31. The broader Nifty was up 49.50 points at 11,224.25.The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) last week lowered its FY20 growth forecast from 6.9 per cent earlier to 6.1 which caused a sell-off in the equity markets.The private banks and financial service stocks declined sharply following the MPC results.In a unanimous decision, the RBI cut its repo rate by 25bp to 5.15 per cent taking
cumulative cut to 135bp for CY19. Monetary policy stance was maintained as 'accommodative'.
--IANS ravi/ksk