Mumbai, February 8: The benchmark Sensex recovered about 168 points in early trade today on buying in realty, IT, capital goods and banking stocks after the RBI maintained status quo in its monetary policy review yesterday. The 30-share index rose by 167.73 points, or 0.49 percent, to 34,250.44 opening trade. All the sectoral indices led by realty, IT, healthcare and banking were trading in the green with gains of up to 1.86 percent.

The gauge had lost 2,200.54 points in the previous seven sessions. Also, the NSE Nifty rose 42.35 points or 0.40 percent to 10,519.05. Major gainers that supported the recovery were Infosys, HDFC LTD, Axis Bank, Maruti Suzuki, Yes Bank, Dr Reddy's, SBI, Hero Motocorp and M&M, gaining up to 2.08 percent.

Brokers said buying by domestic institutional investors (DIIs) and a mixed trend at other Asian bourses improved the market sentiment. DIIs had bought shares worth Rs 461.19 crore, while foreign funds sold shares to the tune of Rs 1,022.50 crore yesterday. In the Asian region, Hong Kong's Hang Seng was up 0.48 percent while Japan's Nikkei higher 0.26 percent in early trade today. Shanghai Composite Index, however, shed 0.81 percent. The US Dow Jones Industrial Average ended marginally lower by 0.08 percent yesterday.