NEW DELHI: Most private bank stocks including ICICI Bank (down 1.33 per cent), IDFC Bank (down 1.30 per cent) and Federal Bank (down 1.01 per cent) were suffering losses during the first half of Tuesday's trade.

Shares of controversy-hit ICICI Bank came under pressure after reports emerged that the bank's CEO Chanda Kochhar will proceed on leave to facilitate an independent investigation into charges of favouritism and impropriety while the group's life insurance head Sandeep Bakhshi will run the bank as its Chief Operating Officer.

The Nifty Private Bank was trading 0.33 per cent down at 14,939 around 10:40 am.

RBL Bank (down 0.78 per cent), IndusInd Bank (down 0.72 per cent), Axis Bank (down 0.70 per cent) and Kotak Mahindra Bank (down 0.26 per cent) were also among the losers.

However, YES Bank (up 0.66 per cent) and HDFC Bank (up 0.21 per cent) were the two stocks in the index that were up around that time.

Equity markets were in the negative territory, tracking weakness in global stocks as the trade conflict between the US and China intensified.

Benchmark NSE Nifty50 index was down 59 points at 10,741, while the BSE Sensex was 170 points down at 35,378.

Among the 50 stocks in the Nifty index, 13 were trading in the green, while 37 were in the red.

HPCL, Indian Oil Corporation, BPCL and Vedanta were among the top losers in the Nifty index.

However, GAIL, Lupin, Dr Reddy's Labs and Bajaj Finance were among the top gainers in the Nifty pack of stocks.