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Morgan Stanley downgrades HDFC Bank, Axis Bank and ICICI Bank

The brokerage shifts focus to small lenders with niche operations and good asset quality

growth, corporate bond, banks, balanced sheets, bankruptcy code
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Illustration: Ajaya Mohanty

Hamsini Karthik Mumbai
It appears that the investment case for mid-sized banks and non-banking finance companies (NBFCs) is gaining more momentum. Leading foreign brokerage, Morgan Stanley, in a report captioned 'Downgrading the Large Banks; Prefer the Smaller Lenders', flagged off that earnings for the financial stocks may remain weak in FY18 and FY19.

"Return on equity for the sector will struggle and there will be very material divergence in growth of book value per share, which will continue to create divergent stock price performance," the report highlights. What’s interesting is that the investment downgrade undertaken by the brokerage on India’s three largest private