March 2025
India Strategy
BSE Sensex: 74,102
Nifty-50: 22,498
Sharp market correction offers opportunities
Nifty-50 correction phases
Nifty 50’s decline from
peak to trough
FII outflows during drawdowns
FII outflows during
drawdown phases (USD b)
Is the market close to a bottom?
Multiple factors suggest that the Indian
equities could be in the latter stages of correction unless any extreme
unforeseen risk materializes. We believe that the modest earnings growth so far
in FY25 should give way to double-digit growth in FY26. Market valuations have
eased, especially in large-cap stocks, with Nifty-50 trading at a ~10% discount to
LPA. India’s fiscal and monetary policies have turned stimulative, which should
support demand and sentiment. Nifty-50 has corrected ~16% since late Sep’24,
which is close to the median correction and maximum non-black-swan
correction of the past 10 years. FII selling of ~USD28b is 85%+ of the highest
selling in the past decade. Moreover, the recent global factors that are
instrumental in these corrections are also turning around, with the Dollar Index,
S&P500 and US bond yield retracing to levels closer to pre-US election results.
Buying opportunity emerging in select names:
In this report, we identify key
beaten-down names that have corrected meaningfully and currently appear out
of favor, but for which our analysts have a strong conviction over their earnings
growth, business momentum and quality of business model/management –
suggesting that the stock correction likely factors in excessive pessimism. Our
top picks identified based on the above criteria are as follows:
Large-caps: RIL,
Bharti, Hindustan Unilever, L&T, Maruti, Titan, Adani Ports, Bharat Electronics,
LTIM, Shriram Finance, JSW Energy and Polycab; SMIDs: HDFC AMC, Coforge,
Page, AU SFB, JK Cements, Ipca, Godrej Properties, Brigade, Angel One, and
Happy Forgings.
Stimulative fiscal and monetary policies should help revive demand:
The
Indian policy setting is also becoming more accommodative, which should begin
to lift demand impulse over the next few quarters. Both the monetary and fiscal
policies have pivoted to spur domestic consumption and liquidity. India’s
Finance Minister, in the FY26 Union Budget, flexed the government policy to
stimulate consumption through INR1t worth of budgeted savings for taxpayers.
Multiple monetary measures reflect RBI’s accommodative stance:
On the
monetary front, the RBI recently embarked on a rate-cut cycle after five years
(last rate cut was in Mar’20). In the lead-up to the rate cut, the RBI had also
been boosting domestic liquidity through various measures such as: 1) CRR cut
from 4.5% to 4.0% (INR1.16t), 2) OMO purchases (INR600b), 3) FX swaps
(INR450b), and 4) VRR auctions (INR42.2t). On 5th Mar’24, it announced further
measures that will potentially infuse liquidity through fresh OMOs (INR1t) and
FX swaps (~INR0.9t). Both fiscal and monetary policies have turned more
accommodative, which, in our view, will boost the demand impulse and growth
over the coming quarters.
A perfect storm:
Indian markets have corrected meaningfully over the last five
months, with the Nifty-50/Nifty MidCap/Nifty SmallCap down ~16%/21%/24%
(as of 4th Mar’25) from their peak. The broad-based correction is mainly
attributed to modest 9MFY25 earnings growth, continuous FII selling since
Oct’24 (~USD28b), a challenging geopolitical backdrop, and a strengthening
Research Analyst: Abhishek Saraf, CFA
(Abhishek.Saraf@MotilalOswal.com)
| Gautam Duggad
(Gautam.Duggad@MotilalOswal.com)
Research Analyst: Deven Mistry
(Deven@MotilalOswal.com) |
Aanshul Agarawal
(Aanshul.Agarawal@Motilaloswal.com)
Motilal Oswal research is available on www.motilaloswal.com/Institutional-Equities, Bloomberg, Thomson Reuters, Factset and S&P Capital.
Investors are advised to refer through important disclosures made at the last page of the Research Report.