SBI down after Morgan cuts target

SBI is doing too well today morning. The stock was down intra day by around 2.5% at Rs.175 levels and close to its 52-week low of Rs.151.60.

The stock is bearing the brunt of Morgan Stanley putting out a report on the bank, cutting its price target and expressing concern over its NPAs. It reduced the target price by 36% to Rs.115, reducing EPS by 28-35%. It has put out an ‘underweight’ on the stock.

This has been its reaction to ICICI Bank’s earnings where it now expects banks to report much higher NPAs. It expects SBI’s bad loans at Rs.35,000 crore for H1FY16, up from its earlier estimate of Rs.15,000 crore. The report states that around Rs.10,000 crore worth of restructured loans will come under “perennial restructuring”, which in turn would mean a high provisioning. It expects provisioning to go up from current 5% to 15%.