Nifty Falls Below 9,000 Points, Banking Stocks Weak

Benchmark indices were trading weak, despite strong global cues, as banking stocks plunged in trade. The Sensex was trading with losses of 426 points, while the Nifty lost 142 points in early trade, to fall below the 9,000 points mark.

Shares in Reliance Industries dropped despite reports that General Atlantic, a leading global growth equity firm announced an investment of Rs 6,598.38 crore in Jio Platforms.

Shares in Nippon Life India Asset Management fell after its quarterly numbers disappointed the street. The stock was down more than 6 per cent in trade.

Coal India stock was down 5 per cent, after Finance Minister announced commercialisation of Coal. Investors sold the stock, as the sheer monopoly of Coal India would now be broken.

Banking stocks were weak in trade, after the Finance Minister announced that the threshold to initiate insolvency proceedings were raised to Rs 1 crore from Rs 1 lakh earlier. This investors felt would impact the banks. Stocks like HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank and Axis Bank were lower. HDFC Bank was lower by 1.5 per cent, while ICICI Bank lost almost 5 per cent in trade.

Shares in Bharti Airtel were trading higher, ahead of the results to be declared later by the company.

Meanwhile, most Asian markets were trading higher, as Dow Futures pointed to higher openings for the US markets.