The Sensex is likely to rule between 13,200 and 14,400 points and the rupee may touch Rs 54-55 by June next, Credit Suisse India has said in a report.
Swiss brokerage Credit Suisse expects the economy to continue to show positive surprises and record up to 9 per cent growth in the next fiscal. For the current financial year too, the brokerage anticipates growth to be higher than the consensus forecast of 8.4-9.5 per cent, and printing in at around 10.5 per cent. As a policy, Credit Suisse does not provide absolute growth numbers in its forecast.
Citing the impact of the second wave of the pandemic over the economy and consumer sentiment, Swiss brokerage Credit Suisse has lowered its nominal GDP growth forecast by 150-300 bps to 13-14 per cent, but expects a stronger recovery in the second half as it sees the lockdowns having limited impact on tax collections. Last month, Neelkanth Mishra, the co-head of equity strategy for Credit Suisse Asia Pacific, and India equity strategist, had told PTI that he expected the real GDP to fall to 8.5-9 per cent in FY22 due to the more severe pandemic attack. The virus case load has crossed the 25-million mark, death toll from the same is nearing 2.9 lakh mark, which is one of the highest in the world as the test positivity rate has been around 15 per cent for long.
As per financial service major Credit Suisse's India market strategy report, a host of companies, including Aditya Bira Nuvo, Bajaj Hindusthan, Adani Power, are planning to tap the capital markets in the coming months through various routes, including private placement and preferential allotments. The report advised investors, who are confident of the political outcome and global rally, to pick from the list of companies about to finish funding.
The global turmoil in the banking sector has made analysts cautious, who advise that investors stay away from stocks of this sector till the overall sentiment improves. The recent trouble for the banking sector started with the collapse of US-based Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), Silvergate Capital and Signature Bank. On its part, Moody's Investors Service has also cut its outlook for the US banking system to 'negative' from 'stable', citing the run on deposits at these three banks that led to the collapse of these banking majors in less than a week.
The sharp correction in the Indian markets from their peak levels has made valuations attractive, say analysts, who advise buying selectively, but only from a long-term perspective. Fifty-six of the Nifty 100 stocks, according to Mahesh Nandurkar, managing director at Jefferies, now trade below the 10-year historical averages, including stocks in financial, select auto, and pharma sectors. "Valuation (one-year forward consensus price-to-earnings, PE) has declined 25 per cent from October 2021 peak, almost matching the 33 per cent price-earnings contraction during the 2011 tightening cycle when repo rates went up by 375 basis points (bps) versus 250 bps this cycle.
While analysts remains overweight on financials, property, discretionary, industrials and materials, they maintain a neutral stance on pharma, telecom and energy; and underweight on staples, utilities, and IT services.
Standard Chartered's India strategy will focus on wealth management while credit card will remain core to its business though will avoid competition with the country's private banks, said a senior executive of the British lender. "Our focus on wealth management and affluent clients are central to our existence. "We are strong in these areas and we want to grow in these areas.
So which sectors are likely to do well in 2022? Should you focus on domestic economy-related sectors or export-oriented ones?
If the latest strategy reports of some leading foreign institutional investors (FIIs) are anything to go by, then the outlook for the Indian equity market appears bleak. This is, despite section of experts pitching for the current attractive valuations.
19% of 320 institutional investors managing $1.3 trillion prefer India as investment destination in 2017
The bull run in the Indian equity markets is intact, said analysts at Morgan Stanley in a recent note. They expect the S&P BSE Sensex to hit 80,000 levels by December 2023 in their bull-case scenario, to which they have assigned a 30 per cent probability. From the current level, this translates into an upside of nearly 29 per cent.
Despite the large economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, the markets have recovered sharply even though the performance among individual stocks has been quite polarised.
While Unilever has been aggressive, both organically and inorganically in the country, P&G's approach has been about achieving 'balanced growth' in terms of top line and bottom line.
Embattled billionaire Gautam Adani on Thursday spoke publicly for the first time since his ports-to-energy conglomerate publicly battled a short seller's accusation of stock manipulation and accounting fraud, saying the abrupt move to withdraw a fully-subscribed share sale at his flagship firm was due to market volatility. His group continued to lose on the stock market, with the cumulative rout now nearing $108 billion in a week -- one of the biggest wipeouts in India's history. "After a fully subscribed follow-on public offering (of Adani Enterprises Ltd), yesterday's decision of its withdrawal would have surprised many.
Even though stocks may remain volatile in the run-up to the polls, as political parties stitch up alliances, the long-term trajectory for the markets remains bullish.
Optimism about a stable govt at the Centre, a demand revival and falling oil prices buoyed the markets.
Will 2022 be a year of contrasting narratives -- one filled with caution and the other with continued optimism?
Lump sum investments in equity and hybrid schemes of mutual funds (MFs) declined to Rs 17,900 crore in October - the lowest since January 2021. The fall in lump sum investments comes even as flows through systematic investment plans (SIPs) rose to a new all-time high of Rs 13,000 crore in October. The latest lump sum tally is just a third of the peak inflow of Rs 49,700 crore in July 2021.
Fintech firm MobiKwik on Monday filed a draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) with the markets regulator, Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), for its initial public offering (IPO). According to its DRHP, the company plans to raise Rs 1,900 crore, which includes a fresh issue of Rs 1,500 crore and an offer for sale of Rs 400 crore. The selling shareholders include American Express Travel, Bajaj Finance, Cisco Systems and Sequoia Capital India, besides founder Bipin Preet Singh. MobiKwik is the latest among tech majors wanting to list on stock exchanges. Food delivery start-up Zomato will launch its IPO on Wednesday.
Of these 26, Bajaj Finance, Associated Alcohols and Breweries, Garware Technologies, Filatex India, Tasty Bite Eatables, Aarti Industries and GMM Pfaudler saw an over 10-fold surge in price since 2014.
'For those looking at forward-looking signals for the economy from the stock markets, the relative performance of small and mid-caps may be a better indicator of the future than the index levels of the narrower and more popular indices', says Neelkanth Mishra.
Food ordering platform Zomato, whose Rs 9,375 crore IPO opens on July 14, is planning to launch a grocery section on its app soon, a senior company official said. The company recently invested USD 100 million (around Rs 745 crore) for acquiring a minority stake in grocery delivery platform Grofers. "It (grocery) is a large opportunity. The online grocery is nascent right now but is growing rapidly not just in India but across the world... "We are actively experimenting in that space and recently invested $100 million for a minority stake in Grofers, with the idea of getting more exposure to that space and building our strategies and plan around that business," Zomato CFO Akshant Goyal said.
The deluge of offerings in the primary market, a muted results season and increasing talks of a Fed taper may quicken the pace of overseas investors selling Indian equities in the near term. The next few weeks may see a dozen companies tap the market for initial public offerings and raise about Rs 30,000 crore. These include the likes of Zomato, Glenmark Life Sciences, Utkarsh Small Finance Bank and Seven Islands Shipping.
Morgan Stanley removed banking stocks from its model portfolio when it slashed its weighting on the sector by 500 basis points. Several foreign brokerages, such as UBS, JP Morgan, and Credit Suisse, of late, have also become less optimistic about banking stocks.
Indian equities are no longer cheap vis-a-vis global markets, and only a short distance away from being the most expensive they have ever been.
...followed by financial services, IT, and sales and marketing.
The Rs 51 per GB data versus industry norm of Rs 250-plus comes with the caveat of an upfront payment of Rs 1,498 for a year
'India is possibly the most fiscally constrained market in the region.'
Of the 1,145 offers made this year, consulting firms made up 34 per cent, followed by banking, financial services and insurance, pharma/healthcare, IT/ITeS and FMCG/retail.
'People always short-change the resilience of the economy.'
So, what does 2016 have in store for the Indian markets? Will they be able to take a giant leap forward in the leap year, and what are the key risks?
In prior elections, not only have opinion poll forecasts been very different from the results, the error margin has increased over time. One need only look at the charts that show the Sensex half a year before and after the results day for the last six elections. The markets did not change direction in any, says Neelkanth Mishra.
The sale proceeds will be fully utilised to repay debt at Bharti Telecom and will make the promoter holding firm a 'debt free company'.
These sectors have underperformed the wider market over the past year and are seen having far more upside potential if the economy picks up thanks to Modi's reformist agenda.
The failure of SVB was due to idiosyncratic reasons, but shows how higher rates can expose fault lines in unforeseen places, observes Neelkanth Mishra.
GST rate cut for real-estate, income transfer scheme, farm loan waivers execution and recapitalisation of PSU banks have the potential to boost India's growth in a few months, says Neelkanth Mishra.
'There is a weak link between the economy and the stock market.'
'The market won't wait for earnings to recover.'
'While GST and demonetisation are likely to cause disruption for longer than the market currently expects, they can have meaningful positive impact over the medium-term.'