Piotroski 8/9 Stocks: ITC and NTPC Flag Value

Piotroski Screen Surfaces ITC and NTPC at Compelling Valuations The Piotroski F-Score is a blunt instrument, and that's precisely its value. It doesn't care about narratives. It checks nine binary conditions across profitability, debt load, and operating efficiency, then assigns one point per pass. A score of 8 or 9 out of 9 flags a company with broad fundamental health. Right now, two of India's most-watched large-caps are sitting at 8/9: [ITC](/stock/ITC) (NSE: ITC) at a P/E of 17.57x and [NTPC](/stock/NTPC) (NSE: NTPC) at just 10.39x. That combination — high Piotroski score paired with low-to-mid valuation — is exactly what systematic screens are built to find. ITC's case is the more striking of the two. An ROE of 49.8% at a sub-18x P/E is unusual for a company of its size and diversification. The cigarettes business generates cash at rates most Indian corporates can't match, and the FMCG segment, long the drag on group margins, has been narrowing losses consistently. The stock has had a difficult 18 months relative to the broader Nifty 50, which partly explains the valuation gap. That underperformance, read through a Piotroski lens, starts to look less like a structural problem and more like a setup. NTPC tells a different story. Its ROCE of 9.9% won't win awards, but for a regulated utility with a capacity addition pipeline running into gigawatts, capital returns are structurally capped by tariff frameworks. What matters here is balance sheet discipline and earnings visibility, both of which the Piotroski screen rewards. At 10.39x earnings, the market is pricing NTPC as though its renewable expansion adds nothing to the multiple. That's a conservative read. Banking Names Clear the Bar — With Sector-Specific Caveats Four banks round out the high-Piotroski cohort: [HDFC Bank](/stock/HDFCBANK) (NSE: HDFCBANK), [SBI](/stock/SBIN) (NSE: SBIN), [Kotak Mahindra Bank](/stock/KOTAKBANK) (NSE: KOTAKBANK), and [Axis Bank](/stock/AXISBANK) (NSE: AXISBANK). All four cl...