Share price of Punjab National Bank hit a 52-week high of ₹139, rallying 5% on the BSE in Wednesday's intraday deals amid heavy volume.

Share price of PNB surged 11% in the past two trading days.

Deepak Korgaonkar Mumbai

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Punjab National Bank share price movement

Share price of Punjab National Bank (PNB) hit a 52-week high of ₹139, rallying 5 per cent on the BSE in Wednesday’s intraday deals, extending its Monday’s up move, amid heavy volume. In the past two trading days, the market price of the public sector bank surged 11 per cent after it reported strong earnings for the quarter ended September 2026 (Q2FY27). The stock surpassed its previous high of ₹135.15 touched on January 19, 2026.

At 12:45 PM, PNB traded 4 per cent higher at ₹137.30 on the BSE, compared to a 1.2 per cent rise in the BSE Sensex. The average trading volume at the counter more than doubled with a combined 59.2 million shares changing hands on the NSE and BSE.Check - TOP GAINERS NSE | TOP LOSERS NSE

Brokerages view on PNB

PNB reported a robust quarter with its highest-ever return on asset (RoA) of 1.09 per cent and profit after tax (PAT) growth of 13 per cent year-on-year (YoY). This was driven by net interest margin (NIM) expansion (+8bps quarter-on-quarter (QoQ)), 24 per cent YoY fee income growth and negligible credit cost (just 3bps). Sequential NIM expansion was supported by lower funding costs, phasing out of low-yielding Inter-Bank Participation Certificate (IBPC)/corporate exposures and balance sheet optimization. Loan growth remained healthy at 16 per cent YoY as the advances mix continued to shift towards retail, agriculture, and MSME (Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises) or RAM, analysts at JM Financial Institutional Securities said in the result update.

Management reiterated confidence in further margin improvement of 7-9 bps in coming quarters, led by repricing the repo rate-linked book and stable cost of fund. The bank continued to build prudential buffers, which would limit the impact of expected credit loss (ECL) provision to ₹5,000 crore.

Management expects a slowdown in recovery as the overall pool of previously written-off assets shrinks and new slippages are limited; to offset this, they are creating new fee income streams. Thus, management is confident of delivering a medium-term RoA of 1.04–1.05 per cent and ROE of 15-17 per cent, which we largely concur with. Accordingly, analysts said they raised FY27E/28 EPS estimates by 17 per cent/19 per cent and upgraded the PNB stock to BUY (from ADD) with a revised target price of ₹140 (earlier ₹120), valuing the core bank at 0.9x FY28E BVPS (0.8x earlier).

According to Jefferies, for Q2FY27, PNB's profit of ₹5,500 crore (+13 per cent YoY) was ahead of its estimates with better net interest income (NII), higher treasury & lower provisions that offset higher operating expenditure. Key positive was the rise in NIMs, reflecting improving quality of deposits (lower share of bulk-deposits) & loans (lower share of IBPC).

Bank's asset quality continues to be stable with a gross slippage ratio at 0.8 per cent of past year loans, gross non-performing lending (NPL) at 2.6 per cent of loans and NPL coverage at 90 per cent. Credit costs were at 0.3 per cent of average loans, but the P&L charge of provisions was low at ₹970 crore as bank reversed some provisions on standard assets. Bank expects transition to ECL to drive a one-time charge of ₹8,000 crore (5 per cent of net worth) and a recurring impact of higher credit cost around 15bps of loans. Jefferies said they factor credit costs rising from 27bps in FY27 to 40-45bps in FY28-29. The brokerage firm retains a BUY rating and roll-forward price target to ₹140 (from ₹130), based on 0.8x Dec-28E adjusted P/B.Disclaimer: Views and outlook in this report belong to the brokerages and analysts cited. They do not reflect the views of Business Standard. Readers are advised to exercise discretion.

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First Published: Nov 11 2026 | 1:21 PM IST