Sensex Falls 600 Points as HDFC Bank, Axis Bank Trail PNB and Reliance

India’s Sensex shed more than 600 points on Monday, and the Nifty 50 slid under 24,150. Brent crude broke above $91 a barrel after renewed fighting around the Strait of Hormuz, and the country’s two biggest private lenders fell hard on their own quarterly results.

By early afternoon the picture had split cleanly in two. HDFC Bank and Axis Bank dragged the Nifty Bank index down more than 1.5%, even as Punjab National Bank pushed the Nifty PSU Bank index up 1.7% and Reliance Industries turned in a record quarter of its own. At 1:02 PM, the S&P BSE Sensex was down 617.55 points, or 0.79%, at 77,533.90, after touching an intraday low of 77,368.29. The Nifty 50 fell 153.10 points, or 0.63%, to 24,181.20, having dipped as low as 24,135.85 earlier in the session.

Oil Crosses $91 a Barrel as the Strait of Hormuz Tightens

The macro backdrop did the index no favors. Crude has been swinging for weeks as fighting between the United States and Iran flares and cools. Brent had climbed back above $76 a barrel in early July after a bout of violence in the Strait of Hormuz threatened what had been, until then, a fragile ceasefire, according to Al Jazeera.

It kept climbing from there. NBC News reported Brent jumped as high as $87 a barrel in mid July, a level not seen since June, after the US carried out fresh strikes on Iran and Washington pulled a temporary waiver that had allowed some Iranian oil sales. Tanker traffic through the strait thinned out fast: shipping data from Kpler cited by NBC showed transits falling from 24 vessels on a Saturday to just 10 by the following Monday.

That is the environment Indian investors woke up to on July 20, with Brent trading above $91 a barrel. The next test for oil markets is whether the current standoff holds or breaks further, since a full closure of the strait would hit Asian refiners and importers like India hardest.

• $91+ a barrel: where Brent crude stood as Indian markets traded on July 20, per the day’s session data.
• 77,368.29: the Sensex’s intraday low, a session drop of close to 1%.
• 1.7%: Monday’s jump in the Nifty PSU Bank index, led by Punjab National Bank.
• 10 vessels: ships that transited the Strait of Hormuz on the Monday tracked by Kpler, down from 24 two days earlier.

None of that stopped India’s banks from reporting. The quarter ending June 2026, known as Q1 FY27 in Indian corporate filings, landed over the weekend and after Friday’s market close, setting up Monday’s split reaction.

Why Profit Growth Didn’t Save HDFC Bank and Axis Bank

HDFC Bank, the country’s biggest private lender, reported a 5% rise in standalone profit to ₹19,060 crore for the June quarter, up from ₹18,155 crore a year earlier. Its shares fell anyway, tumbling as much as 5.41% to ₹777.50 on the National Stock Exchange.

The numbers behind the headline explain why. Total income for the quarter dropped to ₹92,184 crore from ₹99,200 crore a year ago, the bank said in a regulatory filing. Operating profit fell to ₹28,169 crore from ₹35,734 crore. Net interest margin, the spread between what a bank earns on loans and pays on deposits, slipped to 3.26%, a 12 basis point decline, while the CASA ratio (the share of low-cost current and savings account deposits) eased to 32.3% as pricier term deposits grew faster.

Analysts largely called the results in line with expectations rather than a miss, but the margin trend still spooked the stock. Bernstein noted margin pressure as both loan yields and funding costs moved the wrong way, even as balance sheet growth stayed healthy. Brokerages including UBS, JPMorgan, Nomura, Macquarie and CLSA kept buy-side ratings on the stock, with the consensus target price near ₹1,029.80, implying roughly 25% upside from Friday’s close.

The results also came with a leadership footnote. Welcoming incoming chairman Rajiv Kumar, HDFC Bank managing director and chief executive Sashidhar Jagdishan said the appointment had brought in “a sense of stability,” a comment that lands in the middle of the bank’s long running search for a permanent chairman, a process that has run alongside questions about Jagdishan’s own tenure.

Axis Bank told a similar story with different numbers. Standalone profit after tax rose 22.5% to ₹7,114 crore from ₹5,806 crore a year earlier, and net interest income climbed 9.4% to ₹33,985 crore from ₹31,063 crore. The stock still fell as much as 6% to a session low of ₹1,249.10.

Net interest margin fell to 3.46% from 3.73% a year ago, the main reason brokerages trimmed estimates even as they praised the credit quality. Managing director and chief executive Amitabh Chaudhry told the earnings call that the current margin level is likely the low point of the cycle, though he stopped short of giving a timeline for recovery. Axis was not alone either. Yes Bank, a smaller private lender, fell about 4% the same day despite beating profit estimates, reinforcing that this was a private banking pattern rather than a one-off. The weakness fits a longer running trend, too: HDFC, Axis and Kotak have traded at a persistent discount to global bank peers even through India’s broader economic expansion.

Punjab National Bank Turns a Weak Base Into a Rally

State run lenders had the opposite morning. Punjab National Bank posted a 213% jump in standalone net profit to ₹5,253 crore, from ₹1,675 crore a year earlier, and its shares climbed as much as 5.6% to ₹111.68.

Some of that jump is a base effect worth flagging. PNB’s tax expense fell to ₹1,724.72 crore in the June quarter from ₹5,083.25 crore a year earlier, when a heavier tax charge had depressed the year ago profit. Total expenses still declined 1.45% to ₹29,711 crore, and net interest income rose 3% to ₹32,897 crore from ₹31,963 crore. Gross non performing assets improved to 2.78% from 3.78% a year earlier, even as the bank raised bad loan provisions to ₹792 crore from ₹396 crore.

The reaction spread across the sector. The Nifty PSU Bank index surged 1.7% to an intraday high of 8,527.50, against a previous close of 8,381.75, with Canara Bank and Union Bank also contributing to the move. Investor attention is now shifting to State Bank of India, the country’s largest state run lender, which had yet to announce a date for its own Q1 results as of Monday.

The gap between headline profit growth and stock reaction is the story of the day. PNB’s growth rate looks the biggest by far, but it owes plenty to a soft prior year comparison. HDFC and Axis both grew profit and still lost value, because the market is currently pricing margins over reported earnings.

Reliance Turns the Same Oil Shock Into a Record Quarter

Reliance Industries, India’s most valuable company and the country’s dominant oil to telecom conglomerate, moved in the opposite direction from the broader market, with shares up as much as 1.4% to an intraday high of ₹1,345.90.

Revenue from operations rose 25.4% year on year to ₹3.12 lakh crore. Including other income, gross revenue reached a record ₹3.40 lakh crore, or roughly $35.9 billion. On a recurring basis, stripping out a one time gain booked a year earlier, EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) climbed 10.1% to a record ₹54,067 crore, while profit after tax rose 6.1% to a record ₹23,196 crore.

Reliance chairman Mukesh Ambani said in a statement that “our diverse business portfolio has once again demonstrated its resilience in a quarter which witnessed continuing geopolitical tensions.” The comment lines up with the quarter’s backdrop: Brent crude averaged around $104.5 a barrel through April to June, a jump of roughly 54% from a year earlier, driven by the same Middle East supply disruptions rattling markets again this week.

Higher crude usually squeezes a refiner’s raw material costs. Reliance’s integrated refining and petrochemicals business benefited instead, with the oil to chemicals segment’s EBITDA margin expanding to 8.43% from 7.85% quarter on quarter, as stronger refining economics offset the pricier feedstock. Reliance Retail was the softer spot, with EBITDA slipping 1.1% on continued digital commerce investment, while Reliance’s telecom and digital arm kept growing on the back of its expanding subscriber base.

Order Books Lift L&T and VA Tech Wabag

Away from earnings, a run of fresh contracts moved a handful of smaller names. Three names in particular stood out for order wins rather than results:

• Larsen & Toubro disclosed mega orders worth an estimated ₹10,000 crore to ₹15,000 crore for its metals and minerals business. The company’s exchange filing said the wins were “reinforcing its leadership in delivering world-class engineering, procurement and construction solutions” across the sector.
• VA Tech Wabag shares rose as much as 5.4% to an intraday high of ₹2,098.70 after securing a Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board contract to build sewage treatment plants of 100 million litres per day (MLD) at Byramangala and 60 MLD at Bellandur, plus a 25 MLD tertiary treatment plant, with biogas based power generation built into the scope.
• Swaraj Engines gained 3% to an intraday high of ₹3,830 after reporting Q1 FY27 net profit of ₹56 crore, up 11% from ₹50 crore a year earlier, on revenue that climbed 21% to ₹588 crore from ₹484 crore.

None of these three needed a banking sized swing to move the stock. A single disclosed order or a modest earnings beat was enough, a reminder that Monday’s session had more than one kind of winner.

Tata Technologies Slips as Swaraj Engines Gains

Tata Technologies sat on the other side of that ledger. Shares fell as much as 3.4% to an intraday low of ₹732.05 after the company reported an 11.47% quarter on quarter (QoQ) drop in consolidated net profit, to ₹180.75 crore from ₹204.17 crore in the previous quarter.

Revenue told a better story than profit did. It rose 33.8% year on year to ₹1,664.63 crore, up from ₹1,244.29 crore a year earlier, and gained 5.9% from the ₹1,572.22 crore booked in the prior quarter. The profit decline, in other words, came despite growing sales, pointing to margin or cost pressure inside the business rather than weak demand.

Between Tata Technologies’ slide and Swaraj Engines’ gain, Monday’s board looked less like a single market move and more like a scorecard, one where the same earnings season rewarded a tractor engine maker and punished an engineering services firm on the very same day. State Bank of India’s Q1 numbers, expected in late July or early August, will be the next big test of whether Monday’s PSU bank rally has legs.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. Stock prices and financial figures are accurate as of July 20, 2026, and readers should consult a licensed financial advisor before making investment decisions.