Market may decline further but nothing major, hopes Ashi Anand, points to value zones
Ashi Anand, Founder & CEO, IME Capital, says he would understand if there is further downside to the market. However, due to the strong long-term outlook for India, major declines are not expected. The main worry is with smallcap stocks. In larger-cap indices, a drop of 5-10% seems manageable. But with smallcaps, if retail investors start to panic, liquidity can vanish quickly, leading to significant losses. Therefore, he recommends that investors should stay cautious.
Anand also says that for people with a slightly longer-term horizon, some attractive buying opportunities exist in Digital and some could emerge in capital markets and real estate and capital goods spaces. All these companies have run up very considerably. These are also stocks that have led the fall, and have all fallen more than the overall markets.
How much more of a selling are we likely to see or do you think that the end is near now?
Ashi Anand: That is really the question on everyone's mind. We do not necessarily think we are at the absolute bottom. There could potentially be further downsides. Just to understand that in the overall context, markets have doubled from before pre-COVID levels taking the COVID fall. But if you look at the largecap indices, they have doubled from pre-COVID. You are down only 10%. Smallcaps were up 300%, and are down only about 20%.
If you look at the corrections in the context of the major move that you have seen on these broader indices, the correction is really not something which is very sharp. Now, if we
