Shibani Sircar Kurian on 4 sectors one can be positive about now

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

Shibani Sircar Kurian, Senior EVP, Fund Manager & Head -Equity Research, Kotak Mahindra AMC, says “the way we have been approaching the market has been to look at domestic facing sectors and businesses where we are seeing growth and earnings trajectory remaining fairly intact. Sectors where we continue to remain positive include industrials, auto, cement, and banking. Now, within banks, if you look at the way the entire segment has played out, the larger private banks, despite the fact that they have seen improvement in terms of profitability, have not seen multiples re-rate.

Therefore, their multiples remain at long-term average levels.”A couple of stocks which are coming under pressure are from the cement space right now, whether it is an India Cement or JK Cement. What is your view on the cement pack as a whole? Is there any stock from this vertical that you would suggest as a buy?From a sector perspective, we continue to remain fairly positive on cement. What we have seen, especially in the quarter gone by, is that the volume growth has been very, very strong.

Of course, pricing has remained muted and that has been the elusive factor in this old equation where cement companies are concerned. The overall impact or the positive impact because of input cost pressure coming off is likely to flow through in the next few quarters as well. Therefore we do see some amount of improvement on margins coming through because of lower input costs.