The key domestic benchmarks are likely to open lower today tracking a bearish trend in fellow Asian peers as the weakest growth in China’s industrial output since 2008 signaled a faltering recovery in the world’s second biggest economy. Further, investors may react negatively to tepid IIP numbers which showed that industrial output growth slowed to a mere 0.5 per cent in July 2014, year on year from an annual 3.9 per cent expansion in June 2014. Analysts were expecting industrial output to rise 1.8 per cent, year on year in July 2014. A sharper than expected slowdown in industrial output has casted doubts over the pace of recovery in Asia’s third biggest economy. Caution may persist ahead of the WPI data to be released today. Wholesale inflation may have slowed to 4.36 per cent in August 2014 from 5.19 per cent in July 2014, according to analysts’ estimates. Easing inflation will leave more room for the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to start reversing its tight monetary policy stance, going forward, supporting Dalal Street, and curbing losses in the Sensex. Consumer inflation eased to 7.80 per cent in August 2014 from 7.96 per cent in July 2014.