Stock-picking in a volatile market: Shiv Chanani's strategy for the new financial year

«We believe that in such kind of situations where you still have a lot of uncertainties, markets generally tend to give a lot more weightage to the near-term earnings,» says Shiv Chanani, Baroda BNP Paribas MF.

This is the first day of the new financial year. In fact, we are coming out of a month of extremes. March was a month of extremes. We saw extreme lows and then a great recovery coming in, in the second half of the month. So, today, of course, what is playing out really is the threat from the reciprocal tariff from Trump. But generally, now, is there some bit of comfort as far as market valuations are concerned? Are you constructively more optimistic about the markets going ahead?
Shiv Chanani: So, as you rightly said, that it is a bit of a contrast right now where we are seeing a bit of operating environment which is uncertain. I mean, of course, tomorrow being the so-called Liberation Day, we do not know really what is coming out of that.

So, yes, there are a lot of uncertainties. But yes, when we look at on the other side, at the aggregate valuations, they are looking far more reasonable, let us say, compared to what they were looking somewhere around June, July, August of last year.
Having said that, aggregate valuations are always a little tricky because at the end of the day it is a sum of a lot of things. We believe that in such kind of situations where you still have a lot of uncertainties, markets generally tend to give a lot more weightage to the near-term earnings. And hence, we believe that till