Fund Manager Talk: Why Mahesh Patil isn’t the one to time election outcome

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

Mahesh Patil, CIO, Aditya Birla Sun Life AMC, says the market has a tendency to continue with its inherent trajectory based on fundamentals.
“Hence, we would not try to time election outcomes and rather focus on stock picking while reducing risk in the portfolio to navigate the volatility due to election outcomes,” he says. Edited excerpts from a chat:

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What is your overall reading of the numbers and management commentary that we have come across in the March quarter earnings? What is catching your attention?

The March quarter has seen a slowdown in the topline growth across sectors as the nominal growth has moderated on the high base of last year and cooling off of inflation. In sectors like consumer staples even the volume growth has been weak, in low single digit, due to slow recovery in rural consumption. On the positive side some consumer companies have raised hopes of a recovery in consumption in the second half of this year. Sectors like automobiles, capital goods and pharma sectors have witnessed gross margin improvement due to lower input costs, thus leading to stronger bottom-line growth. Sectors linked to the global economy and export-oriented companies have seen slowdown, especially IT and chemicals. The resurgence of manufacturing in China and their dumping in global