Four Ace Stock Pickers Reveal Their Favourite Stock Picks

Kshitij Anand of ET has collated the stock recommendations of four well-known experts

Pramod Gubbi, VP, Institutional Equities, Ambit Capital

From a medium to long-term perspective, India still stands better irrespective of what critiques say. The government has done a number of things, which are really positive from a long-term perspective.

Investors who have stable capital will continue to find new ideas at new levels, at every sell off to come in. From a shorter term perspective, sectors that have nothing to do with the domestic cyclical are set to gain. We prefer exporters and thankfully we have seen some sort of correction in both IT and pharma spaces.

Valuations are beginning to look attractive. These are the spaces where investors could participate right away because they are unlikely to be affected by any sort of weakness in the domestic economy. There are a few areas on the government’s radar, where you could see impact on profitability sooner than later. These include roads, railways, defence and mining sectors.

Ambareesh Baliga, Market Expert:

Over the next two or three months, it would be a great opportunity for people to buy and stock up their portfolio for the next major move up, because that would be backed by figures. In the private banking space, ICICI Bank may underperform, while stocks like Axis Bank, IndusInd Bank, DCB and Kotak are clearly expected to outperform.

We are bullish on Exide since the last one year. Post the fourth quarter results, I would be taking a backseat to a certain extent. The results clearly show that who the leader is. The leader clearly is Amara Raja at this point of time.

Even as Exide continues to be a leader in terms of numbers, with the sort of performance which it had been showing especially in the last six to eight quarters, I do not really expect see a major performance as far as the price moment is concern.

Deven Choksey, MD, KR Choksey Securities:

I find some of the companies in the media space, some of the companies in IT space, a couple of them in the cement space, and in the private banking space certainly looking interesting.

I would like to add them into the portfolio from a long-term investment point of view. I do agree that some amount of stress is there in the market, because of the unwinding pressure of the FIIs, but the fact is that we are still in a bull market.

G Chokkalingam, Equinomics Research & Advisory:

We are quite bullish on auto components. In fact, I always keep saying that in auto component space, chase good management, good balance sheet with single digit PE. Once again that kind of opportunity has come in the names like JK Tyre, which is trading at around seven-eight times one year forward earning. That is again conservative estimate.

Similarly, Jay Bharat Maruti is trading at one-year forward earning, it is quoting less than 7 PE and Maruti Suzuki has got some stake in the company. Maruti is going for a lot of expansion and that would be positive for Jay Bharat Maruti.

Third idea is Steel Strip Wheels. It has corrected a lot and, in fact, in a tough environment, it has been growing its volume almost in double digit. There is a lot of comfort because a lot of reputed names have stake in the company like Tata Steel, through its subsidiary and then another Korean company has stake.

Avinnash Gorakssakar, Miintdirect.com

Within the rate-sensitive segments, we continue to be positive on the commercial vehicle space. Ashok Leyland and Tata Motors DVR are some of the stocks which we would be buying at every level even on a small decline.

The auto component space is also buzzing and my sense is larger players like Bharat Forge clearly remains a very dominant player in Europe and the US considering the kind of strong domestic CV recovery.

We also like Sintex, which we believe is a very unique play on the clean India initiative, plus textiles are doing well. The cash flows are improving for the other parts of the business. So, clearly one has to take a longer-term call at least for the next 12-15 months. This could be a good time to actually accumulate quantities currently.