Indian share markets lost their growing momentum and finished marginally lower in the afternoon session. At the closing bell, the BSE Sensex stood lower by 51 points, while the NSE Nifty finished down by 26 points. The S&P BSE Mid Cap finished down by 0.5% while & S&P BSE Small Cap finished up by 0.2%. Losses were largely seen in metal stocks, software stocks and pharma stocks.

Asian stock markets finished higher today with shares in Japan leading the region. The Nikkei 225 is up 0.62% while China’s Shanghai Composite is up 0.43% and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng is up 0.26%. European markets are higher today with shares in London leading the region. The FTSE 100 is up 0.59% while France’s CAC 40 is up 0.49% and Germany’s DAX is up 0.44%.

The rupee was trading at Rs 64.42 against the US$ in the afternoon session. Oil prices were trading at US$ 47.3 at the time of writing.

In news from banking sector, the rating agency, CRISIL in its latest report has said that Indian banks are likely to take a haircut of nearly 60%, worth Rs 2.4 trillion to resolve the top 50 Non-performing asset (NPAs) accounts with debt of Rs 4 trillion.

According to the report, these 50 companies are from the metals (30% of total debt), construction firms (25%), and power (15%) sectors, and account for half of the Rs 8 trillion bad loans in the banking system as on March 31, 2017.

The rating agency has said that it would be in the larger interest of the economy to pop the bitter pill of haircut than kick the can down the road. It has estimated that banks have provisioned for about 40% of this loan exposure and added that they used the economic value approach to assess the haircuts.

Further, the report noted that a quarter of the debt analyzed needs marginal or moderate haircuts, while a third needs aggressive and nearly 40% deep haircuts. It also pointed out that the companies from the power sector would require moderate haircuts, whereas those from the metals and construction sectors would need aggressive ones.