Reuters Market Eye - HDFC Bank Ltd may beat consensus profit forecast for the October-December quarter when it reports results on Friday, Thomson Reuters StarMine's SmartEstimates shows.
StarMine's SmartEstimates, which places greater emphasis on forecasts by top-rated analysts, expects HDFC Bank to report a profit of 23.18 billion rupees for the quarter, compared with a consensus mean estimate of 22.93 billion rupees.
Brokerage Motilal Oswal upgrades the bank to "buy" from "neutral" and raises its target to 820 rupees from 725 rupees on attractive valuations and strong growth, ahead of its third- quarter earnings.
The brokerage says the bank trades at a one-year forward price to earnings of 15 times which is a 25 percent discount to its long period average, and price to book value of 3.2 times which is at 5 percent discount to its average despite the comfort of over 25 percent compounded annual growth in earnings.
HDFC Bank shares ended up 1.2 percent.
(Reporting by Abhishek Vishnoi)