ICICI, SBI, BoB, Axis, PNB best performers as banking stocks shine bright today

Investors were very optimistic on Bankex, so much so, that it even earmarked over 28,000-mark and gained more than 945 points.

Representational Image: Photo: Reuters

Everything went right when it came to trading today and that was reflected in Sensex closing at 34,067.40 up by 718.09 points or 2.15% and Nifty 50 ending at 10,250.85 up by 220.85 points or 2.20%. The uptrend in the Indian stock markets can be attributed to a very strong performance given by banking sector after quite a few months. Investors were very optimistic on Bankex, so much so, that it even earmarked over 28,000-mark and gained more than 945 points.

S&P BSE Bankex Index closed at 28029.40 after it soared by 870.13 points or 3.20%.

But the eye catching moment was major private and state-owned lenders who rocketted to an extreme level. On Bankex, top gainers were - ICICI Bank, Bank of Baroda, State Bank of India, PNB and Axis Bank.

Not much was revealed as to why banking stocks soared, however, there were key developments in some lenders like ICICI, SBI and Axis.

Among the gainers list, ICICI Bank leads in today’s trading session. This was on the back of Q2FY19 result, where ICICI Bank turned from loss to profit, and lowered its provisions despite rise in gross NPA. This would also be first result of ICICI Bank without iconic chief Chanda Kochhar who had a controversial exit from the lender this month.

ICICI Bank ended at Rs 349.15 up by 10.82%. However, the bank has touched an intraday high of Rs 352.05 per piece resulting in nearly 12% gain by the closing of the session.

Second on the list was Bank of Baroda, which saw massive buying on the back of Q2FY19 results announcement. Reason for stocks gain can be due to investors looking forward for updates on the bank's merger with Dena Bank and Vijaya Bank. BoB ended at Rs 107.05 per piece up by 8.24 %.

BoB, was followed by State Bank of India ended at Rs 268.05 per piece up by 8.04%. Reason can be that the bank is planning to raise about Rs 26,600 crore from sale of non-core investments, stake in subsidiaries and also from the market to shore up its capital reserves this fiscal.

The bank revealed that it plans to raise Rs 2,777 crore from the sale of non-core investments such as its investments in NSE, Sidbi, CDSL and other public bodies.

The bank is currently exploring its options for offloading stake in these entities.

On the other hand, Axis Bank too gained massively on the index, after it executed an agreement for sale of 19,79,900 equity shares at Rs 825 per share with HDFC Bank.

This means Axis Bank is offloading about 4.95% of its stake in NSDL to HDFC Bank. This results in a total cash consideration of Rs 163.34 crores and it hold 5% stake in NSDL. The bank ended at Rs 564 per piece up by 4.96%.

Apart from this, among top gainers also involved Punjab National Bank ending at Rs 70.90 per piece up by Rs 4.95 or 7.51%, Federal Bank at Rs 81.10 per piece up by 1.95% and Yes Bank at Rs 181.25 with the hike of 0.39% at the end of the session.

While the above mentioned stocks surged, there were three stocks who were least favorite of investors. In the top loser's list involved - IndusInd Bank taking top spot ending at Rs 1410.95 low by 2.36%, followed by HDFC Bank at Rs 1924 down by 1.95% and Kotak bank at Rs 1137.55 down by 1.85% at the end of the session.

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