Last week, on 30th July and 31st July, Andhra Bank hit new 52-week lows but today, it has been holding onto being the top gainer on the BSE. The stock rose 5% to Rs.20.50 on the back of its encouraging Q1FY20 earnings and improvement in asset quality.

The Bank, after posting losses in all the four quarters of FY19, began FY20 first quarter with a profit. Consolidated net profit came in at Rs.39.50 crore v/s loss of Rs.537 crore (YoY). Total income rose from Rs.5315 crore to Rs.5724 crore.

What really helped was the lower provisioning at Rs.1060 crore v/s Rs.1707 crore of which provisions for NPAs were at Rs.923 crore v/s Rs.1388 crore.

In terms of asset quality, Goss NPA was slightly higher at 16.44% v/s 16.21% (QoQ) while Net NPA was showed a very good improvement at 5.67% v/s 5.73%.

Govt holding in the stock is at 87.81% v/s 90.85% (QoQ).