Banking PSU stocks were in the spotlight on Friday with Canara Bank featuring prominently among the winners.

In fact, the scrip of the Mangalore-based commercial bank sprang forth 8.9% to Rs 73.80 on BSE in mid-morning trades. The stock clocked massive volumes of 5 million shares on BSE in just around two hours.

A clutch of other banking PSUs surged, too, including Andhra Bank (up 5.9% to Rs 27.80), Oriental Bank of Commerce (up 4.7% to Rs 64.50), Syndicate Bank (up 3.3% to Rs 16.95), Bank of India (up 4% to Rs 37.60), Punjab National Bank (up 3% to Rs 106), Union Bank of India (up 2.8% to Rs 25.70), Corporation Bank (up 2.5% to Rs 138.40) and Bank of Baroda (up 2.6% to Rs 89).

Volumes were notably high in UBI (up 1.38 million shares), Andhra Bank (1.18 million shares) and BoB (860,000 shares).

Banking PSUs are in the spotlight as some domestic mutual funds are undertaking buying to prop up their year-end NAVs. The financial year ends on Monday, 31 March 2003. A NAV boosting exercise is usually resorted to by fund managers because their bonuses are dependent on the fund's performance for the year, dealers say.

Alliance was a prominent buyer in a bid to leverage NAV, market sources say.

A host of domestic funds have taken exposure to baking PSU shares over the last few months as they are seen as the biggest beneficiaries of the Securitisation Bill that paves way for speedy recovery of bank's sticky assets.

Canara Bank and PNB are believed to be Alliance's favourites as of the moment. Of the two, PNB has been witnessing a sustained rise over the last few trading sessions and was at Rs 106 today, its all time high.

The Canara Bank counter has proved relatively steady – the stock has witnessed buying support at every decline over the last few months .