Macro tailwinds continue; 7 hotel stocks from large, mid and smallcap space, one with upside potential of

India Business News: MUMBAI: Robust demand coupled with gradual alignment of demand-supply of branded hotel room inventory will see the hotel industry end at RevPAR growth.

In 2008, the IPO of a power company got subscribed in less than a minute of its opening and the size of that issue was Rs 11,563 crore. This just shows the desire to own power sector stocks at that point of time. From those days of frenzy to the nadir in 2014, when power companies were on the top of the list of NPA of the banks. Power companies have seen both the extreme of valuations. It is a sector where after many failures and to some extent a consolidation, some companies have emerged which know how to deal with all kinds of economic and industry cycles. That is probably the reason why a number of companies from the power sector have seen a sharp re-rating in the last one year. Hoping the survivors have learnt their lessons.

While the recent performance of stocks like REC, PFC and recently listed IRDEA has brought focus back to one segment of power companies. But the fact is that in the last few years, the sector has been going through a consolidation. Some of it was forced by the banks due to many companies going under the IBC and some due to the fact that any industry which has gone through a troubled phase of almost a decade, the players who are able to survive tend to get more attention because they have learnt the art of surviving a tough phase which is one most important feature for long term survival. Power sector stocks are now catching up with what the market has witnessed in the last few years.

Cement has been a sector where most of the analysts have been caught off guards. The stocks have done well and a large number of analysts have been sticking to their stands that pricing and capacity utilization is an issue. What they probably ignored was the fact that any industry which has been facing headwinds for a long time tends to sort the issues and few players are able to make a comeback as consolidation takes place. Pretty much what we have seen in power.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has stated that the Indian economy is performing well, despite global economic turbulence. The RBI has maintained its growth forecast at 6.5% and inflation projection at 5.4% for the fiscal year. The governor of the RBI, Shaktikanta Das, highlighted the resilience of domestic economic activity and cautioned against complacency. He also mentioned the importance of lessons learned from past economic crises.

Financial sectors stocks tend to do well, where there is inflow from foreign portfolio investors, the reason, it is their preferred sector for taking exposure to the Indian market for decades as it can also act as a proxy for GDP growth. After a gap of two months, September and October, FPI have been net buyers in the month of November and till date in December. Given the fact that in the last one year there has been a sort of underperformance by financials stocks, there is high probability that we might see some of them making a come back, we take a look at stocks from this sector where one of one of valuation matrix meets the criteria for investing for long term.

Among many industries which have seen a strong transformation in the last nine years due to policy initiatives has been the sugar industry. This is despite the fact that sugar is a state subject where central policies can only play a limited role. If one looks at the balance sheet of a large number of them, they are far better placed than they were six years ago and to some extent in the last two years even the institutional investors have started to take exposure in this sector which they have avoided for more than three decades.

In the last two years, every sector has come into focus at one point of time or the other. Some came into limelight due to the fact of real positive changes in the fundamental operating matrix of that sector. While others came into focus just because of too much liquidity chasing Indian paper. In the case of the pharma sector, after years of consolidation, valuation readjustment and regulatory learning which altogether led to positive change in the fundamentals, the stocks made a comeback. It is almost a period of six to eight years that the industry is back on the list where there are more positive developments than negative. These changes have come after the management of a large number of pharma companies learnt the lesson hard way. The lessons that expansion based on PPT presentations on market growth are probably not the best way to run business, rather ensuring compliance to regulatory requirements is more important. So sectors like pharma which have seen a very long phase of business remodelling and valuation readjustment need to be brought back on the watch list.

In the correction that markets saw in the last four trading sessions, the financial sector stocks, right from banks to other players also declined. But if one looks at the magnitude and the internal breadth of the sector it was much better as compared to a month back when the market correction was started by HDFC bank. There was a bit of profit booking in the PSU bank space, but once again after a small corrective move, things were back with a strong intraday recovery. The way things are panning out in the industry with regulatory tightening taking place, there is very likely that we might see a divergence in performance of different segments of this sector which has the highest correlation with the GDP growth. Better balance sheets and strong franchise are likely to be the differentiating factors. The factor which is largely technical in nature is the shareholding patterns that will also impact the performance of the stocks from this sector.

Recent reports indicate a decline in cement prices, causing a significant correction in cement stocks. However, it's important to consider broader factors before making investment or trading decisions in the cement sector. Despite a temporary price dip, the sector continues to benefit from increased demand driven by infrastructure projects and improved balance sheet quality. This suggests the sector's long-term prospects remain intact despite short-term price fluctuations.