Nifty Bank index hits over 1-month low; Bandhan, RBL Bank slip 5%

At 12:51 pm, the Nifty Bank index was down 2.7 per cent at 34,536 points, as compared to 1.6 per cent decline in the Nifty50 index

Shares of financials, including banks, were under pressure on Monday, with the Nifty Bank index, down  3 per cent, hitting an over one-month low after the Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation hit a three-month high in February 2021, while Index of Industrial Production (IIP) recorded a contraction of 1.6 per cent in January.

The pick-up in CPI inflation and the fall in IIP does not make the Monetary Policy Committee’s (MPC) task any easier. While we hope that IIP would return to positive territory in February, we expect inflation to edge up further to around 5.4 per cent in