ICICI Bank stocks top choice of 32 mutual fund houses; HDFC Bank second

If you dabble in the share market or mutual funds, one of the best investments right now could be ICICI Bank stocks. We are not saying so. ICICI Bank stocks are the hot favourites of at least 32 mutual fund houses currently, including SBI Mutual Fund, ICICI Prudential, and HDFC Mutual Fund.

Barring Axis MF, all the top ten mutual fund houses have ICICI Bank as the largest holding. The second-largest private lender in India has Rs 1.44 crore of mutual fund money riding on it. Rival HDFC Bank is in second position among mutual fund favourites, with Rs 1.16 lakh crore riding on it.

The outlook for ICICI Bank stocks in so strong that SBI MF, India’s largest fund house, has invested 7.69 per cent of its AUM (assets under management) in these. SBI MF manages assets worth around Rs 6.85 lakh crore.

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ICICI Prudential has put in 7.5 per cent, while HDFC MF has invested 6.46 per cent. UTI, Nippon India, Kotak, Aditya Birla, Franklin Templeton, Tata, L&T, Sundaram, and many other fund houses have placed their single largest best on ICICI stocks.

Markets rising

Not only mutual funds, ICICI Bank is reportedly a favourite of many PMS (Portfolio Management Service) funds and Dalal Street brokerages too. The credit for the bank’s turnaround is being given to Sandeep Bakshi, who took over as its MD and CEO in October 2018. In the four years of his tenure, ICICI Bank stocks have rallied by over 175 per cent.

Indian stock markets started the week on a positive note. The BSE Sensex closed at 58,960.60 on Tuesday, up 550 points from Monday’s closing price. The Nifty50 index settled at 17489.85, up 178 points from Monday.

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The Sensex top gainers were SBI Technologies, NTPC, Bajaj Finserv, ICICI Bank, and Axis Bank. The Nifty50 top gainers included SBI, Bajaj Finserv, Axis Bank, NTPC, and ICICI Bank, in that order.

(With agency inputs)