Heavy Volumes In Icici Bank Scrip

Hectic trading activity was witnessed in the ICICI Bank scrip on Wednesday, the day it was listed at the National Stock Exchange(NSE). A record number of more than one crore shares got traded at the NSE on the first day itself.

The scrip closed at the NSE at Rs 49 with 1,067,1000 shares getting traded , while at the BSE the scrip witnessed a trading of 34,58,000 to close at the same price.

The scrip continued to witness hectic trading on Thursday and Friday also. It closed on Friday at Rs 51 at both the exchanges after touching a high of Rs 53 and Rs 52 at the Bombay Stock Exchange and NSE respectively.

Issued at a premium of Rs 25, the ICICI Bank issue received an overwhelming response from the public and was oversubscribed by over 5.92 times in retail category while in the higher category it got oversubscribed by 6 times.

The main reason for the ICICI Bank scrip moving up at the bourse was due to heavy buying from speculators and foreign institutional investors, said a broker. In fact, FIIs were not given any firm allotment in ICICI Bank share during the initial public offering.

According to an equity analyst: The initial euphoria in the bank share also played a crucial role in heavy trading taking place in the ICICI banking scrip. This, in turn, lead to a spurt in the price.

The ICICI Bank share is a fundamentally sound scrip and is good for long-term investment, said a research analyst from a leading FII.

Except for the Unit Trust of India (UTI), which was issued 12 lakh shares from one crore shares applied for, other domestic financial institutions could not garner a higher number of shares.

The downtrend at the markets also affected the price of banking stocks.

The margins of banks are likely to come under pressure this year due to a slowdown in the economy. This has caused credit offtake to continue to remain at lower levels, says Prassana Marar, analyst, Mafatlal Securities.

Over supply of stocks in this sector is one factor for the slump in bank stocks, said a banker.

Fundamentally strong banking stocks like HDFC Bank, Bank of India, Bank of Baroda, ICICI Bank will continue to attract attention from speculators, said another broker.

Among bank stocks which remained steady in the bear onslaught were HDFC Bank at Rs 67, Dena Bank at Rs 21 and Bank of Punjab at Rs 14.

The stocks which went down within the past four weeks were SBI, which slid to Rs 277 from Rs 298, BoI to Rs 58 from Rs 61 and BoB to Rs 131 from Rs 138.