ICICI Bank, Yes Bank top picks, says Rahul Singh

ICICI Bank, Yes Bank and Bank of Baroda are top picks, says Rahul Singh, Head of Equity Research, Standard Chartered Securities.

Singh told CNBC-TV18, "Our top picks are ICICI Bank, Yes Bank and Bank of Baroda. From a result point of view, I think State Bank of India (SBI) could also surprise on their gross slippages number in terms of it being lower, so we could get a short-term upside in SBI from a results point of view but the asset cycle or the bad asset cycle is more of a journey than a cycle, so we would keep getting over the next four-five quarters negatively surprised on the asset cycle at least that is what our call is. So we would stick with private sector banks, which are ICICI Bank and Yes Bank in terms of a slightly longer-term horizon if you didn’t want to take a 12 months view on the sector."
ICICI Banks' trailing 12-month (TTM) EPS was at Rs 44.73 per share. (Mar, 2012). The stock's price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio was 19.69. The latest book value of the company is Rs 477.87 per share. At current value, the price-to-book value of the company was 1.84. The dividend yield of the company was 1.59%.