Indian stocks were badly hit as Chinese Stock Exchanges closed for trade after the CSI 300 plunged 7 per cent, forcing the authorities to shut trading in China.

Benchmark indices in the country plunged following the China closure. The Sensex was trading with losses of 357 points. Banking stocks were the worst hit with several blue chip banking stocks falling to 52-week lows.

Banking stocks have been at the receiving end for the last few weeks now. Investors have dumped these stocks on worries over the quality of assets. It is believed that non performing assets could worsen for banks in the next couple of quarters, before showing improvement later this year.

New provisioning norms may lead to further dip in net interest margins, many analysts feel. Even private sector banking stocks and heavyweights like ICICI Bank and Axis Bank have been dumped by investors on worries over asset quality.

In fact, stocks like ICICI Bank and Bank of Baroda have not hit 52-week lows, but, are very close to those levels.

GoodReturns.in