Skip to main content

Bear Market Rally

India's long-term story is intact but unfortunately we are in a bear market. The 5 main factors adding fuel to the fire are - Macro, Global Risk Appetite, Monsoon, Earnings Outlook and Sentiments.

The macro is bad with high crude oil prices and hence rising inflation, slowing growth and ultimately, higher long bond yields. Global risk appetite or global financial market conditions are key given India's relatively high beta status underpinned by how India's balance sheet is funded.

Possibility of a bad monsoon in Karnataka, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Parts of Central India will dampen the Agri sector. Earnings outlook is weak. 6 Months ago only the American stocks were hit and we had the de-coupling theory, however with Q1FY09 results, it is evident and the consensus is ready to cut numbers due to slowing growth. Fragile sentiment which could get a lot worse before getting better.

This Rally will sustain and move sidewards if crude remains soft, Inflation stays sub 12%, the RBI delivers a benign policy at the end of July on the back of slippage in crude oil prices and the earnings season does not produce a major negative.

Financials and Capital Goods are likely to underperform; Healthcare and Telecom will likely outperform. Keep booking profits on Rallies only to BUY Back at lower levels later bringing down your average cost of acquisition.

Popular posts from this blog

NSE Trading Holidays 2024

 Trading holidays for the calendar year 2024. The National Stock Exchange of India (NSE) has notified trading holidays for the calendar year 2024 as below: Muhurat Trading:  Timings of Muhurat Trading shall be notified subsequently. 

Historical BSE Sensex returns - updated 2013

We have already seen the historical returns of the BSE Sensex, which indicated an average return of about 20%  per year, despite many yearly returns varying from -20% to +60%. The following table shows BSE Sensex historical data - open, close and the yearly returns of the sensex from 2000 to 2012. There are some interesting points to note from the above table. Post 2008 crash of about 50% and 2011 negative returns of 24%, markets have given positive returns of 81% and 25%. Also the average returns for the past years is about 20% despite the markets being down 24%. The lesson is pretty much clear - long term investing pays and one need not bother too much about the ups and downs of the markets. During the past few years, the returns from investing in individual stocks have been varied.  Despite markets being at 2 year highs, only a few stocks are at similar highs, while most of them are still languishing well below their historical highs and are down anywhere between 8