Market valuations indicate bottom is near, economic outlook optimistic: Chakri Lokapriya

«All the GST products which come in that band, the affordable products, I would guess are the ones where they would see some kind of cut, clearly not the luxury products, and also given that automobiles and tariffs and Trump tariffs are going to impact the automobiles above that $40,000 mark, clearly there is unlikely to be any GST reduction above that,» says Chakri Lokapriya, CIO-Equities, LGT Wealth.

Where do you see things are stacking up for the market? We have seen a dinky bounce from the recent low. Are we out of the woods?
Chakri Lokapriya: You are absolutely right. We are out of the woods because if you look at the valuation currently trades at Nifty one year forward, trades at about 18.8 times, close to 19 times. The COVID lows was about 18.5 times. So, is the market overall in a far better economic situation than it was during the COVID period lows? Answer is clearly yes.

Companies, corporate, governments, everybody’s balance sheet is far better. So, therefore, with the RBI interest rate cuts, a couple of more lined up, as well as recent income tax cuts, all of this together will kind of reinvigorate pockets of capex as well as consumers. So, given that, yes, we are very close to the bottom.


There is a lot of heightened talk about GST rationalisation, the finance minister dropping big hints over the weekend that perhaps a slab change is going to be in the offing. Do you think that is going to definitely mark a bottom in terms of demand? And, of course, thereby it is going to reflect on equities too.
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