Asset Quality Stress Peaking Out: Maintain BUY State Bank of India (SBI) positively surprised on asset quality front in 1QFY19 led by (a) sequential decline in gross slippages to Rs143.5bn vs. Rs336.7bn in 4QFY18; (b) moderation in standard stressed assets to 1.24% in Jun'18 vs. 1.42% Mar'18; (c) improvement in PCR excluding technically written-off accounts to 69.4% in 1QFY19 vs. 66.2% in 4QFY18; and (d) 22bps QoQ improvement in GNPA ratio to 10.7% and 44bps QoQ improvement in net NPA ratio to 5.3%. Additionally, the Bank holds 71% PCR (vs. 61% in 4QFY18) on accounts referred to NCLT by the RBI, which are still under different stage of resolution. On the operating front, NII grew by 23.8%...