Bullish Bets on Indian Banks Climb After HDFC Bank Profit Beats Estimates
Futures traders boosted bullish bets on Indian lenders after HDFC Bank Ltd. (HDFCB), the third-largest, reported better-than-expected earnings yesterday.
Open interest, or the number of contracts held by traders, on the National Stock Exchange’s CNX Bank Index, rose 2 percent to 37,299, data compiled by Bloomberg show. The 12-member index gained 0.4 percent to 11,585.8 at 12:15 p.m. in Mumbai.
“HDFC Bank beat expectations and the street is expecting others to report stable margin growth,” said Rizwan Khan, senior derivatives strategist at Aditya Birla Money Ltd.
Open interest in State Bank of India Ltd., the largest, climbed 4.4 percent to 23,565, and by 5.3 percent to 40,757 in ICICI Bank Ltd., the second-biggest, the data show. Axis Bank Ltd. (AXSB), the fourth-largest lender that’s due to report earnings on April 22, saw a 4 percent rise in open interest to 8,746.
HDFC Bank gained 1.4 percent to 2,343.1 rupees as of 11:41 p.m. after reporting a fourth-quarter profit of 11.1 billion rupees ($249 million), exceeding the 10.9 billion rupee average estimate of 26 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. The earnings were announced after the market closed yesterday.
To contact the reporter on this story: Santanu Chakraborty in Mumbai at schakrabor11@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Reinie Booysen at rbooysen@bloomberg.net; Darren Boey at dboey@bloomberg.net
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