Sanjiv Bhasin says RBI directive on Paytm a big blow; offers 3 dark horse picks for investors

Sanjiv Bhasin says: “There is enough room for ICICI Bank now to go to new highs. Do not play it for the next few days. This is one stock which should be in your portfolio for that 20% upside which will take it to that $100 billion club. This will be, by the way, the first fourth $100 billion entry.”

Infosys market cap eroded by over Rs 1.6 lakh crore, and that of TCS by 1.4 lakh crore. Wipros market capitalization fell by around Rs 94,000 crore. Shares of the IT majors have plummeted 12-31% in the last 1 year.

Sanjiv Bhasin suggests investing in Nestle, Bata, Patanjali, and Marico as rural incomes recover. He believes the telecom sector will see higher ARPUs and recommends telecom stocks. He is positive on HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Kotak, and RBL Bank. Bhasin also warns: Around the 15th of March, we could be in for some volatility. Take some money home, especially in the midcaps.

Even as the stock market corrects, small and midcap stocks are refusing to leave the party. On a number of days the breadth of the small cap segment is better than large caps. Coming on the list are stocks from infrastructure, FMCG and home appliances space. All of them have beaten the bearish phase of the last one month with a positive return in the last month. ET screener powered by Refinitiv’s Stock Report Plus applies different algorithms & filters to all BSE and NSE stocks, and lists stocks which fulfill the various criteria as specified into the algorithms & filters to find those which might help navigate the stock market.

Som Distilleries and Arrow Greentech are among 12 companies that have delivered multibagger returns and saw profit surges in fiscal year 2023. In the last year, Som Distilleries achieved a nearly 280% return, with a sales increase of more than double, to INR1,498 crore ($202.5m), and it delivered a profit of INR60.3 crore. Arrow Greentech, a packaging firm with a market capitalisation of INR520 crore, returned 279%, with a sales increase of over three times and a FY23 profit of INR12.26 crore. Other multibaggers include companies such as Kamat Hotels, Ujjivan Financial Services and Wonderla Holidays.

For a large majority of investors, when the word “ large cap” is used , it is stocks like HDFC bank, ICICI and other big names come to mind. The fact is that these stocks have moved into the mega cap category. There is another set of stocks which have now entered into large cap territory when it comes to market capitalisation but in terms of certain aspects of business, some of these are from sectors which are getting discovered or getting re-rated as if they are mid-cap stocks. Having exposure to them might appear to be risky, but then the possibility of reward is higher as more institutional investors take exposure to them.

“ if you look at most of the largecap names like Reliance, HDFC Bank and if you look slightly longer over the last say 12 months or so, even ICICI Bank has not done anything. Given the fact that both Reliance and HDFC Banks stocks have got a considerable weightage and they have not performed, that actually makes the case that when they start performing next year, there is a good probability that the largecaps might outperform midcaps for some time.”

In a financial year where the number of stocks gained is much larger than stocks that end in red, there are some surprises in the list of stocks that have ended FY 24 in red. Surprise because of two reasons. First, these are all largecap stocks where fundamentals are surely not in doubt. They have consistently seen earnings inching upward. Yes, one can have a debate about the rate of growth at which earnings have been less than satisfactory. But then they have grown, except in 3 cases, where one can argue that earnings are just refusing to move up. The second surprise is that some of them have created great wealth over the long term. So, if they have not been able to gain in one year should one ignore them. The list is filled with major surprises, a company that is amongst the top ten stocks in terms of market capitalization in the Indian stock market. History has shown that in the stock market, if the fundamentals of a company are fine, then sooner or later they make a comeback.

The bumper gains registered by domestic equities in 2023 saw Indias biggest bull Life Insurance Corporation of India rake in a massive profit of Rs 2.28 lakh crore in its portfolio.

After a long gap, real estate stocks are back in action. Some are reacting to their Q4 numbers which in some cases are coming better than what the street had been expecting. Stock Reports Plus, powered by Refinitiv, is a comprehensive research report that evaluates five key components of 4,000+ listed stocks - earnings, fundamentals, relative valuation, risk and price momentum to generate standardized scores.