SBI Q4 Results: Bumper profit of Rs 19,684 crore, yet why did SBI shares fall? understand the complete mathematics

The country’s largest public sector bank, State Bank of India (SBI) has declared the results for the fourth quarter of the financial year 2025-26. If we look at the juggling of figures, the bank has made huge earnings and the profit figure is in thousands of crores. But the surprising thing is that as soon as the results came on the screen, instead of celebration there was mourning in the stock market. On one hand, the bank is touching new heights of profits, while on the other hand, a period of heavy selling in its shares has started on Dalal Street. What happened that even after earning Rs 19,684 crore, investors turned their backs on SBI?

Actually, the stock market does not run on emotions, but on the scales of expectations and projections. Experts say that the profit figure is definitely huge, but it did not touch the market ‘target’ which the leading analysts were expecting.

Expectations dashed: Why were investors disappointed?

SBI has registered a 5.6 per cent year-on-year growth in its standalone net profit during the March quarter. The bank earned a total net profit of Rs 19,684 crore during this period. Now you might be thinking that if profits have increased then why did the stock fall? Actually, the problem here is that in the Reuters-LSEG survey, experts had estimated that the bank’s profit will cross at least Rs 20,312 crore. When the reality was about Rs 600-700 crore less than the estimate, panic spread in the market.

Not just profits, the story was similar on the bank’s main earnings front i.e. Net Interest Income (NII). The NII of the bank increased by 4.1 percent to Rs 44,380 crore, but it also came out less than the market’s expectations. Due to this ‘gap’, immediately after the results, SBI shares fell by almost 5 percent to Rs 1,037.5.

Ditch in treasury income and falling graph of other income

If we look closely at the bank’s balance sheet, it becomes clear that its earnings from treasury operations have suffered a major blow. In the same quarter last year, the bank had earned Rs 8,991 crore from here, which this time came down to just Rs 1,259 crore. According to experts, due to increase in bond yield, the value of bonds held by the bank decreased, which had a direct impact on its earnings. Apart from this, there has also been a huge decline of about 29 percent in the other income of the bank, which has shaken the confidence of investors a bit.

Improvement in asset quality and ‘dividend’ balm

However, the other side of the coin is also positive. There has been considerable improvement in the health of the bank i.e. asset quality. The gross NPA (GNPA) of the bank has come down to 1.49 percent from 1.57 percent in the last quarter. This is an indication that the bad loans of the bank are gradually reducing. Apart from this, the bank has also made a huge cut in the provisioning (amount kept for bad loans), which supported the profits.

At the same time, amid falling shares, the bank has applied ‘dividend’ to the wounds of its loyal investors. The board of SBI has announced a handsome dividend of Rs 17.35 per share. If you have SBI shares in your portfolio till 16th May 2026, then by 4th June this money will be directly credited to your account.

Overall, SBI’s results are not bad, but they do not fall into the ‘very good’ category either. The market is now eyeing how the bank gets its treasury income and other income back on track in the coming quarters.