About 27.98 crore shares of SBI exchanged hands on both BSE and NSE. (Image: Reuters)
Shares of India’s largest bank by asset size and loan book State Bank of India hit a 52-week high zoomed nearly 30% in the intraday trade on Wednesday. SBI surpassed four companies — Hindustan Unilever, HDFC, Maruti Suzuki and ONGC — and became the fifth largest company by market capitalisation on Wednesday. With today’s appreciation in the stock prices led by the mega boost of Rs 2.11 lakh crore to recapitalise the PSU banks, SBI added Rs 60,596.99 crore in the market capitalisation to Rs 2,80,282.68 crore, as compared to Rs 2,19,685.69 crore at Tuesday’s close.
As far as the volume is concerned, about 27.98 crore shares exchanged hands on both BSE and NSE with 26.26 crore shares on NSE alone. The stock of SBI jumped as much as 29.93% to hit the 52-week high of Rs 328.05 before closing up 26.92% at Rs 322.95. With the fifth spot, SBI is now behind ITC, HDFC Bank, TCS and Reliance Industries in the market capitalisation. Yesterday, the market cap leader RIL crossed Rs 6 lakh crore market cap on NSE in the opening trade. Amid the PSU banks, Punjab National Bank was the biggest gainer, rose 49.45% to hit the 52-week high of Rs 206.55 before closing 48.88% higher at Rs 205.75. PNB
The Nifty PSU Bank index soared the most since the time it was constituted. The index gained 916.45 points or 29.63% to hit the all-time high of 3,835.9 points. The Nifty Bank index suffered the contrary trade between the gainers — SBI, PNB, ICICI Bank, Canara Bank, Bank of Baroda and losers — HDFC Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Yes Bank, IndusInd Bank, The Federal Bank. The index advanced 935.65 points to hit the day’s high of 25,157.8 points but failed to breach the record high of 25,198.8 points, closed up 3.46% at 25,057.8 points.
Indian stock markets closed at lifetime highs on Wednesday led by the rally in PSU bank stocks after Narendra Modi government announced a mega plan of Rs 2.11 lakh crore to recapitalise state-run lenders. The total turnover on NSE Nifty clocked Rs 25,922.11 crore while Nifty Bank saw trades worth Rs 24,450.68 crore. BSE Sensex gained as much as 509.99 points to hit the all-time high of 33,117.33 points while NSE Nifty added 132.85 points to mark the record high of 10,340.55 points. The benchmark Sensex rose 435.16 points or 1.33% to close at 33,042.5 points and NSE Nifty jumped 87.65 points or 0.86% to finish at 10,295.35 points.
In a major announcement, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Tuesday said that the cabinet has approved Rs 1.35 lakh crore for India’s ailing public banking system from recapitalisation bonds, of the total approved 2.11 lakh crore. Recap Bonds are used as payment for the shares bought by the government to ailing banks in a bid to raise their capitals. Earlier in the 90s, the then government had issued recap bonds to borrow from the banks without allowing fiscal deficit to expand.
