Latest Stock Market News

“On the largecap side, L&T should continue to outperform because it is still very under-owned relative to growth prospects. I like M&M because fundamentally they are doing much better than what everyone expected and will continue to do much better and valuations are not so high. Among midcaps, it could be a wide variety of stocks across sectors on the capex theme. I like something like VA Tech Wabag.”

On the technical charts, the RSI of the stock stood at 25.78.

“While production has increased, it has not really increased in line with the demand patterns. As a result, some of the models like the Ertiga, XL6, Grand Vitara, Brezza, Dzire and Swift, are seeing long waiting periods, which we will try to reduce. Second, we will try to push our volumes in the SUV segment to increase our market share there. Hence the medium-term objective of getting to 50% market share.”

The geopolitical tensions between Russia and Ukraine had a cascading effect on other world economies as commodity prices skyrocketed, inflation hit multi-decades high in the US and Europe and forced central banks to hike interest rates like never before.

Now the market is betting that this will be enough for the economy to see significant slowdown and that shall prompt the Fed to cut rates soon. Also, I think disinflation is already on the way unless we have another oil price shock or something like that. We will see significant disinflation over the next year.

Poonawalla Fincorp Ltd, Arvind Smartspaces, Suryoday Small Finance Bank, Sharda Cropchem, and Titagarh Wagons, and South Indian Bank, among others.

Meanwhile, a two-decade-high US dollar and concerns over the economic downturn in China, the largest commodity consumer, eased most of such gains in the second half of the year.

Optimists may point out that the rate-hiking peak is on the horizon, possibly in March, with money markets expecting the Fed to switch into rate-cutting mode by the end of 2023. A Bloomberg News survey found 71% of top global investors expect equities to rise in 2023.

BFSI, metal, and auto stocks helped the market recover during the week. Buying from domestic institutions and retail, combined with a lack of large ticket sales by FIIs in the last week of the year, resulted in a significant price recovery.

Inflation is a part and parcel of life pinching us every few years. 2022 proved that classic inflation hedges don’t always work. Despite high inflation, we witnessed flat prices in gold. Our portfolio needs to be well-diversified across asset classes with well-balanced investing among sectors.