Stock markets decline in early trade on selling in IT shares, sluggish Asian peers; Sensex drops 219 points

Benchmark stock indices Sensex and Nifty declined in early trade on Friday, dragged by IT shares and sluggish trends in Asian markets.

The 30-share BSE Sensex declined by 219 points to 81,414.02 in early trade. The NSE Nifty dipped 53.6 points to 24,780.

Investors turned cautious ahead of the release of domestic GDP data, analysts said.