Q: Which sectors are your institutional clients particularly cautious about now for the next quarters or so?
A: Auto happens to be one sector where after the initial euphoria, after the excise duty cuts in the Budget, I think it has died down. Reality is dawning that, even after the excise duty cuts, there has been no significant volume pick up whether in 2-wheelers or in 4-wheelers. On top of that, interest rates have not come down significantly, so that is also not helping the volumes.
The input cost in terms of steel and all other metals prices have gone up very sharply. Given the fact that there is so much of competition in each and every segment of the automobile space, it’s not possible for the companies to pass on the entire cost increase. So that is one sector where people are cautious, waiting for the fourth quarter numbers to pan out.
Banking happens to be another sector where things have gone structurally wrong, at least in the short-term. At least for the next three to six months time that is one sector that people will remain out of. Power stocks and realty are the other two sectors where people are not very comfortable, even at the current valuations. So these are some of the sectors where people are still cautious.
Q: What exactly is the approach been to power in specific and did many of your clients participate in the Reliance Power IPO?
A: I think the QIP subscripttion figure of Reliance Power says it enough. Almost all the institutions had participated in that expecting a quick return. However, it didn’t turn out that way. Fundamentally everybody was sure that at Rs 400, it was not a great buy but everybody was looking for a momentum play in that sector at that point of time.
Power and real estate are not the stocks to be played on the earnings or the profit growth numbers, they are more of a concept stocks and future growth potential, which is being factored in the current prices. So from that perspective, one sees, at least in real estate, that we have to go through one full cycle of real estate, before the valuations can be stabilized in the industry.
As far as power stocks are concerned, people were using more benchmark valuations of a price to book of 3-4 without really finding out whether that is the derivative valuation based on the DCF (Discounted Cash-Flow)model. If the DFC model throws the price to book of four times, so be it. But just using a ballpark valuations was not correct enough and some of the stocks are still not very cheap, so there is a possibility of further correction in some of the power stocks.
Q: Which sectors do you sense the highest amount of optimism in now, from your clients?
A: Telecom is one sector which I think, form the next couple of quarters perspective, the numbers are still going to be very good. Bharti, RCom, they are going to report good numbers as reflected in the healthy subscripttion additions. The competition too is not going to materialize over the next 9-10 months time, so that is one sector where you can see some buying.
Largecap IT stocks have some selective interest, mainly because people are of the opinion that most of the negatives are already in the price and there could be a marginal downside form the current levels. But from a contra point of view, investment point of view people are looking at those stocks.
Capital goods and infrastructure remains the story for India and I don’t see any major slowdown, happening in the investments in that particular space in the entire infra, engineering and capital goods space, so buying is happening in that particular sector