Axis Bank Ltd

Price story Before the numbers, the tape. A stock price moves through four repeating seasons: a flat base (stage 1), an advance (2), a top (3), a decline (4). Where the price sits in that cycle frames everything below.

Axis Bank Ltd trades at ₹1,217, in a confirmed uptrend and 42 weeks into that stage. That is −3.9% against its own 200-day average. It sits at 18% of a 52-week range of ₹1,180 to ₹1,385. On relative strength it is currently behind the NIFTY 500 on a trailing-13-week view (4 weeks and counting).

Today the stock is in a confirmed uptrend — week 42 of stage 2, confirmed. At ₹1,217 it trades −3.9% versus its 200-day average and sits at 18% of its 52-week range (₹1,180–₹1,385).

Against the market, two honest reads. Cumulative: over the last 10.5 years the stock moved +215% while the NIFTY 500 moved +284% — behind the index over the full window. Recent form: on a trailing-13-week view the stock is currently behind (4 weeks and counting; last ahead the week of 2026-07-17) — the ribbon below is that same metric, week by week.

What would end the trend, mechanically: two Friday closes in a row below the 200-day line. That is the exit rule — no debates.

Valuation For a bank we price the book, not the earnings: P/BV is what the market pays for each ₹1 of the bank's net worth. A bank below 1× book is priced below the value of what it owns, net of what it owes.

Axis Bank Ltd trades at 1.7× P/BV, near the bottom of its own range — cheaper only 8% of the time. Its long-run median P/BV is 2.2×, measured across 10.5 years of weekly readings. This places the multiple against the stock’s own record, and says nothing about what the business is worth.

Today's P/BV of 1.7× is near the bottom of its own range — cheaper only 8% of the time, against a long-run median of 2.2× measured over 10.5 years of weekly readings. This is a comparison against the stock's own history — not a claim about what it is worth.

Why the multiple sits where it does: over the past year book value grew while the price moved +14.0% — price and book moved together, holding the multiple in its range.

The price move, decomposed: over 5y, of the +9.9%/yr price move, ~+15.7%/yr came from book-value growth and ~−5.8 pp from the multiple (compressing); over 10y, of the +7.5%/yr price move, ~+12.2%/yr came from book-value growth and ~−4.7 pp from the multiple (compressing). The split is the honest approximate (price return minus book-value growth); it makes the rally itself visible instead of hiding it behind the percentile.

Put together: the multiple is low against its own past, so the story rests on the book-value line underneath it, not the multiple.

Stage: Mixed Every business sits somewhere on a fundamental arc, and this page names the spot before anything else. The last twelve quarters of revenue, profit and EPS growth — plus the return the business earns on its capital — are read as curves: Deteriorating (the curves are falling), Turning around (a trough has just formed and the last few quarters lift off it), Improving (the climb off the trough is sustained), Consistent (steadily positive with healthy returns), Topping out (still high but decelerating from the peak). When the curves genuinely disagree the read is Mixed; too little history is No read. CAGR (compound annual growth rate) is the smooth yearly pace that turns the starting value into the latest one — the fairest way to compare growth across different time spans. Read the columns together: if the 1-year number towers over the 10-year, recent growth is running hotter than the long-run trend. A dash means that window is not held, or the base year was a loss (where a growth rate is not meaningful).

Axis Bank Ltd reads as mixed on its fundamental arc. Mixed — profit and EPS growth are shrinking while ROE holds at 12.5% — falling growth against firm returns, so no single stage word fits yet. The read is built from 12 quarters across 4 curves, on full evidence.

Why it matters: when the curves disagree, the per-curve reads above matter more than any single verdict.

4-Factor Sector Score

37.3/100 — rank 16 of 18 in Banks - Private · 93% evidence confidence

Axis Bank Ltd scores 37.3 out of 100 against the 18 companies it is compared with in Banks - Private, ranking 16. Cheap but unconfirmed: require improving earnings before treating the valuation as an opportunity.

The four contributions add to the total exactly: 6.2 + 15.2 + 14.2 + 1.7 = 37.3. This is the SAME number shown on the sector comparison — it is computed once, for the whole peer set, and read here.

What would change it: The read weakens if ROA rolls over or gross NPA rises while sector-relative strength deteriorates.

Revenue For a bank, revenue is everything the franchise earns — interest on the loan book plus fee and other income.

Axis Bank Ltd reported ₹35,542 Cr of income in the Jun 26 quarter, +9.9% year on year. That is the 12th straight quarter of year-on-year growth. Over 10 years it has compounded at 12.3% a year. The last full year, FY26, came in at ₹1,32,538 Cr. The last four reported quarters add to ₹1,35,732 Cr.

FY26 revenue came in at ₹1,32,538 Cr (+4.1% on the year), capping 10 years at 12.3% compound. The latest quarter (Jun 26) printed ₹35,542 Cr, +9.9% year on year — the 12th consecutive quarter of year-over-year growth.

Pace check: the last four quarters averaged +5.6% growth against the decade's 12.3% — the current year is running slower than its own long-run rate.

Acceleration check: trailing-twelve-month revenue grew +5.6% over the last 4 quarters against +7.4%/yr over the last 8 — stabilising; TTM profit −0.2% vs +2.0%/yr — stabilising.

Net margin Net margin — what the bank keeps of every ₹100 of revenue after every cost, provision and tax. It is the cleanest single margin we can read for a lender.

Axis Bank Ltd's net margin is 21.6% in the Jun 26 quarter, +2.2 percentage points against the same quarter a year ago. Across 13 fiscal years the net margin has ranged 1.0% to 23.5%. The current quarter sits inside that band.

The latest quarter's net margin is 21.6%, +2.2 pp against the same quarter a year ago. Across 13 fiscal years the net margin has ranged 1.0%–23.5%.

Why: the numbers show the net margin move clearly, but the cost lines behind it sit below what we hold — so we state the move without inventing its driver.

Net profit Net profit is what survives every cost, interest and tax — the number EPS, dividends and book value all grow from.

Axis Bank Ltd earned ₹7,670 Cr of net profit in the Jun 26 quarter, +22.2% year on year. It is the 3rd consecutive quarter of growth. Full-year FY26 profit was ₹26,548 Cr. The 10-year compound rate is 12.3%. That is 21.6% of the quarter's revenue. The same quarter a year earlier earned ₹6,279 Cr.

Jun 26 profit was ₹7,670 Cr, +22.2% year on year — the 3rd consecutive quarter of growth. On the full year, FY26 printed ₹26,548 Cr (−5.8%), and the 10-year compound rate is 12.3%.

Why profit moved: revenue contributed +9.9% and the margin +2.2 pp — the quarter was margin-led: most of the profit growth came from keeping more of each sale.

Pace comparison, last four quarters: profit +0.8% vs revenue +5.6%. Profit is growing slower than sales — costs are eating the growth before it reaches the bottom line.

Asset quality — the ladder Gross NPA is the slice of the loan book where repayments have stopped. Net NPA is what remains after the money already set aside against those loans. Falling is healing; rising is damage arriving.

Axis Bank Ltd's gross NPA is 1.40% of the loan book in Dec 25, down from 1.46% a year ago. Net of provisions already set aside, 0.42% remains. That is the 2nd straight quarter of improvement. Across the 10 quarters held here the book has ranged 1.28% to 1.73%.

Dec 25: gross NPA at 1.40% and net NPA at 0.42%, against 1.46% / 0.35% a year ago. Over the 10 quarters we hold, the book's worst reading was 1.73% and its best is 1.28%. The ladder has now improved for 2 consecutive quarters.

The synthesis: profit growth at a bank is only as good as the book behind it, and this book is healing on a multi-quarter streak. A note on depth: quarterly provisioning detail is not in our numbers yet, so this ladder reads levels and trend, not the cost of the cleanup.

Why the ladder moved: recoveries, write-offs and slippages each play a part, and that split sits below what we hold — the numbers show the healing; the driver mix does not travel with them.

The loan book We read the loan book through revenue — when the book grows, revenue grows with it. It is a rough proxy, and we say so: rate moves and fee swings can shift it a few points in any one year.

Axis Bank Ltd's revenue grew +4.1% in FY26 to ₹1,32,538 Cr, so the book is growing. The latest quarter ran +9.9% year on year. The net margin on that income is 21.6%, +2.2 percentage points against a year ago. Interest income is a proxy for the book; rate moves can shift it a few points in any one year.

FY26 revenue was ₹1,32,538 Cr, +4.1% on the year, and the latest quarter ran +9.9% year on year. The net margin on that revenue is 21.6% this quarter (+2.2 pp YoY) — growth with a widening margin on it.

The synthesis: a lender compounds when the book grows while the margin holds and the loan book stays clean — gross NPA is the loan-quality read we carry here.

Returns on equity and assets Two numbers rate a bank: ROE — what it earns on shareholder money — and ROA — what it earns on everything it deploys. ROE above ~13–15% earns its keep; below that, growth builds book slowly.

Axis Bank Ltd earns a return on equity of 13% in FY26. Its trough over the ladder below was 1% in FY18. On the asset side every ₹100 of the balance sheet earned about ₹1.53, which is the return before leverage is applied.

FY26 ROE came in at 13%, recovered from a FY18 trough of 1%. On assets, the latest reading is about 1.53% — every ₹100 the bank deploys earns roughly ₹1.53 a year. That clears the bar a bank must beat for its book value to compound.

Why ROE moved: profit compounded 12.3% a year over 10 years while the equity base grew more slowly — earnings recovering faster than book value builds is what lifts ROE off a trough.

Debt

For a bank, borrowings are raw material, not a warning sign — solvency is read through the returns and the loan book. A manufacturer’s debt is a claim against its profits, so the debt-to-equity lens that works everywhere else misleads on a lender and is not applied here.

A manufacturer’s debt is a claim against its profits; a bank’s borrowings are its inventory — money taken in to be lent out. The debt lens that works everywhere else misleads here, so this page does not apply it. The solvency questions for a bank — is the loan book sound, is the equity earning — are read through the loan-book and returns sections above.

Ownership Who owns the stock, quarter by quarter: promoters (the controlling owners), foreign and domestic institutions, and the public. Steady accumulation by people close to the numbers is a signal; a quiet register is also an answer.

Foreign institutions cut 13.5 points of Axis Bank Ltd over 8 quarters, the biggest move on the register. That takes foreign institutions to 39.9% of the company. Domestic institutions moved +11.1 points over the same window, to 42.7%. The register is read on the four disclosed classes only; nothing is inferred between filings.

The register over the last two years — Foreign institutions: −13.5 points over 8 quarters to 39.9%; Domestic institutions: +11.1 points over 8 quarters to 42.7%; Promoters: −0.4 points over 8 quarters to 7.9%. Note the structure: promoters hold under 20% — this is a widely-held company where institutions, not a family, set the direction.

Why the register moved: rotation — foreign institutions −13.5 points against domestic institutions +11.1 points over 8 quarters, with promoters holding steady — one class of institutions handing the register to the other, not a verdict change by the people closest to the numbers.

Safety line The Z-score estimates how far a company sits from balance-sheet distress — above roughly 3 is safe, below roughly 1.8 is the danger zone. It was built for manufacturers, so it is not applied to banks and lenders.

Axis Bank Ltd: the Z-score is omitted — it was built for manufacturers, not banks, and applying it here would be theatre. The Z-score was built for manufacturers and is not applied to banks and lenders, so solvency here is read from the capital and asset-quality lines instead.

The safety line in one sentence: the Z-score is omitted — it was built for manufacturers, not banks, and applying it here would be theatre.

Frequently asked questions