Market Recap for 21 May 2021

Nifty50: 15,175 ▲ +269 (+1.8%)
Sensex: 50,540 ▲ +975 (+1.9%)

After a strong opening, the markets saw strong buying interest throughout the day. The Nifty50 and Sensex breached their 15,000 and 50,000 levels for the second time in the week. 

All sectoral indices closed in the green, with the Nifty Bank (+3.8%) and Nifty PSU Bank (+3.8%) witnessing the strongest gains.

Here are the top stories of the day.

Lower provisions boost SBI’s Q4 profit

• The country’s largest public sector bank, SBI, reported a rise in net interest income and lower provisions. Net profit for the March quarter rose 80% YoY to ₹6,451, beating street estimates of ₹6,166 crore.
• NII was up 19% YoY at ₹27,067 crore, and the bank’s net interest margin rose to 2.90%. Further, asset quality improved as gross NPAs fell nearly half a percentage point sequentially to 4.98%. The stock was up 5% today and has risen 47% so far this year.

Higher refining margins lift HPCL’s Q4 

• Inventory gains due to the rise in oil prices and forex gains helped the state-owned refiner to post a ₹3,018 crore profit, compared to a meagre ₹27 crore profit in Q4 of last year.    
• On a full-year basis, the average gross refining margin was $3.86/barrel, up nearly 3 times from $1.02/barrel in FY20. Revenue for the March quarter rose 19% to ₹84,904 crore. The company has announced a dividend of ₹22.75, which translates into a dividend yield of over 8% on today’s closing price. The stock closed 3.8% higher today.

Bad bank to start in June 2021

• The much-awaited bad bank, the National Asset Reconstruction Company Limited (NARCL), is expected to be operational in June 2021. As per news reports, NPAs pegged at over ₹2 lakh crore are expected to be moved to the NARCL This includes about 80 large NPA accounts, each worth over ₹500 crore.
• The bad bank will then sell these assets to potential investors to realise their value. The Nifty Bank (+3.8%) and Nifty PSU Bank (+3.8%) indices surged today, and the top five Nifty50 gainers were major lenders.

Sugar stocks slide on export subsidy cut

• Shares of sugar companies tumbled 1–4% today after the government cut subsidies on sugar exports. The move came amid increasing global sugar prices. The government had earlier approved an export subsidy of ₹6,000 per tonne to help cash-strapped sugar companies. The subsidy has now been reduced to ₹4,000 per tonne till 30 September 2021 and could be cut further if global prices increase.
• Stocks like Balrampur Chini (-3.2%), Dhampur Sugar (-4%), Shree Renuka Sugar (-2.6%), Dwarikesh Sugar (-3.9%)  and Simbhaoli Sugar (-4.8%), which had recently seen a strong rally, witnessed selling today.

Closing bell

The markets saw a healthy rise today after falling for two consecutive days. The benchmark indices closed the week with a 3.3% gain, supported by the rally in banking stocks. The decisive rise in shares of banks and the overall Nifty Bank index suggests that the market is hopeful of a faster economic recovery and the credit growth that will ensue.

Good to know

What is a bad bank?
A bad bank is an institution set up to acquire bad loans or non-performing assets from other banks and financial institutions. This allows commercial banks to transfer the bad loans from their balance sheets to the bad banks, which then recover the maximum possible value out of the stressed assets by selling them to investors. This way, the banks get to focus on their finance and lending operations.

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