Shares to buy: Maruti Suzuki vs Axis Bank vs HDFC Bank, which one should be your top pick?

The quarterly results of Maruti Suzuki, Axis Bank and HDFC Bank have come out and except, Maruti Suzuki, Q4 results of both the banking companies have been in sync with market expectations. Stock market experts are giving credit to the foreign institutional investors (FIIs) for this robust quarterly results of Axis Bank and HDFC Bank. They say in March 2019 around Rs 34,000 crore FII investment has been attracted by the Indian stock markets out of which nearly 50 per cent FII investments have gone to the banking stocks. ironically, out of net FII investments in the banking stocks, around 75 per cent have gone to four banks and HDFC Bank and Axis Bank are two of those four banks. So, the good show by the two banks in quarterly results and reserved performance by the Maruti Suzuki in fourth-quarter results have made a tricky position for the stock market investors as to which shares to buy an which one to be left out.

Asked about the three stocks and their expected performance on account of their quarterly performance Prakash Pandey, Head of Research at Fairwealth Securities told Zee Business online, "In one shot, after going through the quarterly results of Maruti Suzuki, HDFDC Bank and Axis Bank one may think that the bet would be in between the HDFC Bank and the Axis Bank, but if you take my view, I will go with Maruti Suzuki because fundamentally Maruti Suzuki is the strongest scrip among these three shares to buy now." He said that robust quarterly performance by Axis Bank and HDFC Bank is fuelled by the FII investment, which is a portfolio investment and it can be fished out any day in seconds. 

However, in terms of Maruti Suzuki shares, its fundamentals are strong because of its strong balance sheet fuelled by the various numbers like sales, demand in the market for its product, new launches and their performance, etc. Prakash Pandey of Fairwealth Securities said that out of these three stocks Maruti Suzuki seems on upside trend with a potential to return around 20 per cent in short-term perspective while in terms of two banks namely Axis Bank and HDFC Bank the short-term gain expected in these two counters are near 10 per cent which is subject to FIIs faith in the Indian equity market and the Lok Sabha Election 2019 results.

Standing in sync with Prakash Pandey's views Rohit Singre, Senior Technical Research Analyst at LKP Securities said, "All three counters are showing upside bias but the Maruti Suzuki is a bluechip counter and is expected to witness some correction in coming one to two trade sessions, which gets applied on other two banking stocks too. In the short-term perspective, HDFC Bank and Axis Bank are expected to give around 8-10 per cent return while the Maruti Suzuki would touch Rs 8,000 levels in short-term from its current levels of Rs 6,850 per stock levels." Rohit said that a stock market investor should wait for few more trade sessions and take a buy position in Maruti Suzuki at around Rs 6,600 levels and book profit at around Rs 8,000 levels that the counter is expected to show in two to three month time.