Best Five Blue-Chip Stocks To Buy For 2017 By Motilal Oswal

Samvat 2072 had its share of volatility for Indian equities where initial few months were marked by sharp selling while post Budget Bulls took charge driving market all the way to within touching distance of all time high. Indian equities seem to be on a cusp of new growth trajectory enabled by several policy measures being taken and implemented be it coal block allocation, spectrum auction for telecoms, deregulation of petrol and diesel prices, gas price reform, FDI in Insurance & Defense sectors, Reduction in Repo rate, 7th Pay Commission Roll out, Passage of GST Bill among few others. Monsoons have been near normal which is likely to boost agriculture dependent rural income. Better operating efficiencies, higher capacity utilization, slow pick up in pricing power as demand improves aided by higher disposable income will translate to higher ROE’s of corporate India. Domestic cyclicals have turned from being earnings dragger to earnings driver while global cyclicals growth momentum is maintained. Based on aforementioned factors fructifying, we expect earnings growth to pick up momentum from 2QFY17 onwards. Though the market stands at a gain of over 25% from CY16 lows, yet the valuations are around 10 Year average on 12-month forward earnings multiple. The Sensex trades at 16.8x one year forward earnings, at its long-period average of 16.9x. Sensex P/B is at 2.6x, near its 10-year average of 2.7x. Market-cap-to-GDP ratio of 75% (FY17E GDP) is below the long-period average of 78%. Valuations look attractive as we expect Sensex EPS to grow at 17% CAGR over FY16-18 as compared to 6% CAGR witnessed during FY08-16.

Triggers:

• Good Monsoon
• Lower inflation
• 7th Pay Commission rolls out
• GST bill passage
• Lower interest rates

Concerns:

• Continuous slowdown of the global economy
• US rate hikes may make USD stronger and hence FII’s may pull out of emerging markets
• Geopolitical concerns particularly between India & Pakistan

Strong pick-up in earnings and return to double digit growth in revenue is crucial for markets to move up on a sustainable basis. We remain bullish on markets and advocate sticking to our QGLP philosophy for deploying money into quality stocks. Following are the list of our preferred picks for Samvat 2073.