Budget boosters? Betting on these 3 cement, fertiliser stocks: Siddhartha Khemka
Siddhartha Khemka, Head-Retail Research, MOFSL, says cement demand is showing signs of recovery in various sectors, including housing and infrastructure, both in rural and urban areas. A good monsoon is expected to boost demand, particularly from rural regions. Additionally, with the upcoming Budget, there are hopes that government spending, which has been low this year, will increase significantly next year, aiming for a 10% to 15% growth in capital expenditure. This should positively impact the overall cement industry.
In cement, Khemka says, UltraTech is their preferred pick, followed by JK Cement among the midcaps. Within the fertiliser space, the pick is Coromandel International.
What do you make of the market setup right now? Do you think the bulk of the poison is out of the system or do you think there is going to be another couple of weeks of volatility and perhaps at the end of next week, after the Delhi election outcome, etc, is out, that the market will finally stabilise and pick up a direction.
Siddhartha Khemka: The major worry for us from the market perspective is the earnings and that has been something which has been a bit subdued and I would say only until the end of the result season, we could see some stability. Based on whatever numbers that have come so far and the outlook for Q4, even Q4 does not look to be a very strong quarter.
For this quarter, our expectation was about 5% to 6% Nifty earnings growth and for the full year FY25, again there is an earnings expectation of growth of about 5%
