D-Street Buzz: PSU banks rally led by Union Bank; SBI hits record high, Bharti Infratel slips 2%

The Indian benchmark indices are trading on a negative note with Nifty down 34 points at 11,807 while the Sensex shed 115 points and is trading at 39,471 level.

Nifty Metal is down over a percent dragged by Jindal Steel & Power, JSW Steel, Tata Steel, Vedanta and NALCO.

However, the PSU Bank index is outperforming all other indices, which jumped close to 2 percent led by Central Bank of India and Union Bank of India which jumped over 6 percent each followed by Bank of India, Canara Bank, IDBI Bank, Punjab National Bank and Syndicate Bank.

"There are talks of privatization in the financial sector, and there could be some announcements regarding the same in the upcoming budget and/or also outside the Budget, over the course of the year. The government has already provided recapitalization to some of the PSU banks, and gradually seems to be going in for consolidation within the sector," said Sampath Reddy, CIO at Bajaj Allianz Life.

"We feel that consolidation/merger and privatization may help to bring more efficiency to PSUs overtime, and also help to provide more fiscal space to the government (from stake sale), going forward," he added

India VIX is up 1.3 percent and is trading at 14.84 levels.

The top gainers from the NSE include Tech Mahindra, Larsen & Toubro, HCL Tech, GAIL India and Dr Reddy's Labs while the top losers are Bharti Infratel, IndusInd Bank, YES Bank, UPL and Vedanta.

The most active stocks are PFC, Indiabulls Housing Finance, Reliance Industries, State Bank of India and YES Bank.

Vaibhav Global, Rural Electrification Corporation, HDFC Asset Management Company, Siemens, Bajaj Finance, State Bank of India, Power Finance Corporation, Bajaj Finserv and Havells India have hit new 52-week high on BSE.

On the other hand, 157 stocks have hit 52-week low on BSE including Cox & Kings, Eros Media, Sadbhav Infrastructure Project, McNally Bharat, GSK Pharma and Castrol India among others.

791 stocks advanced and 867 declined while 428 remained unchanged on the NSE. On the BSE, 979 stocks advanced, 1145 declined and 136 remained unchanged.