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Shares of ITC hit a five-year high in intraday trading on Thursday after gaining as much as 1.1 percent to Rs 358.4. The stock has gained over 10 percent over the last month.

The FMCG major is now just 3 percent away from scaling its all-time high of Rs 367.7, which it scaled in July 2017.

ITC has now gained over 60 percent this year, and is the best performing stock on the Nifty 50 index.

The recent rally has been mainly fueled by the company’s robust earnings for the September quarter, which were announced on October 20.

Also Read: ITC beats estimates as second-quarter net profit surges to Rs 4,466.1 crore

The cigarette-to-hotel conglomerate’s quarterly net profit had increased by more than one-fifth compared with the corresponding period a year ago, exceeding Street estimates.

The company’s revenue also jumped 26.7 percent. The highlight was the company’s cigarette sales jumping 20 percent year-on-year, far ahead of analysts’ estimate of 14-15 percent.

After ITC released its September quarter earnings, many brokerages recommended buying the stock, while also raising their target prices on account of volume growth in cigarette and FMCG units.

Global brokerage firm JPMorgan maintained its ‘overweight’ rating on the stock with a target price of Rs 380.

Morgan Stanley also maintained its ‘overweight’ rating on ITC and raised its target price for the stock by more than 13 percent to Rs 374 from Rs 330 earlier.

Last month, ITC also announced that it would be increasing its stake in baby and mother care brand Mother Sparsh by putting in an additional investment of roughly Rs 13.50 crore. The FMCG major last week acquired 1,000 compulsorily convertible preference shares in Mother Sparsh, thereby raising its stake in the firm to 22 percent.

Incidentally, ITC features among the top ten stocks where Mutual Funds pared their stake in the month of October. Among those who have done so include HDFC Mutual Fund, M&M Mutual Fund, and Shriram Mutual Fund, according to a note from Yes Securities. On the other hand, Quant Mutual Fund, HSBC Mutual Fund and Mirae Mutual Fund increased their stake in the stock during October.

(Edited by : Rukmani Krishna)