Banking stocks were in the fast lane majorly driven by the state-owned lenders on Tuesday. Private sector banks also witnessed substantial gains. Corporate earnings remain in focus, while a slight downside in daily Covid cases in India also cushioned investors risk appetite. Bank Nifty was among the outperforming indexes on NSE led by broad-based buying.
At around 1.46 pm, Bank Nifty was trading at 32657.30 up 206.40 points or 0.64%.
On the index,
PNB was the top gainer soaring by 9% followed by IDFC First Bank surging by 4%.
SBI and RBL Bank gained by 2% and 1.6% respectively. Stocks like Bandhan Bank, Kotak Bank and Axis Bank jumped more than 1% each.
Kotak Bank's profit after tax (PAT) for the Mar-21 quarter was up by 35.91% at Rs2,589cr. This sharp growth in net profits was explained by flat provisioning in the quarter on a yoy basis. For example, the loan loss provisioning in the Mar-21 quarter stood at Rs1,215cr almost at par with the Mar-20 quarter. PAT margins improved from 15.77% to 16.01% in the same period.
IndusInd Bank and ICICI Bank climbed by 0.9% and 0.5% respectively. Federal Bank and AU Small Finance Bank advanced marginally.
However,
HDFC Bank was the top underperformer tumbling by nearly 1%.
In the last 24 hours, India reported 3,55,998 new cases which are lower compared to Sunday's count. However, India's overall case count has surpassed the 2cr mark taking the second-highest Covid cases spot in the world. The US takes the top spot with more than 3.3cr cases, while Brazil holds the third spot with near 1.5cr cases.