Chemical sector had a strong rally mainly due to some strong industry specific tailwinds. Most important among them was the shortages in key chemicals due to shutdown in chemical companies in China due to pollution control measures. To that was added the China plus one theory post Covid. All this resulted in a heady cocktail which led to big crazy rally in chemical sector and a lot of stocks went up manifold within a short period of time.
The run up had been so strong that it occupied investor mindspace, and even after it has been in the doldrums since many months , a lot of investors are still not able to figure out the commodity nature of the business. While most of the companies in the sector are commodity type companies, there will be a few of them which because of their products, or business models, or niche will be less commoditised and these can be considered. But for that a lot of homework needs to be done to understand the business and come to the right conclusions.
Regarding investing in neglected sectors, we have to understand what we mean by neglected sector. According to me, a neglected sector is one where the cheapness of stocks on conventional parameters is obvious. Say based on PE, P/B etc. Few months back, the PSU stocks basket was one such space. Since past 3-4 quarters, these banks had been posting extremely good Y-on-Y growth in numbers, with improvement in asset quality, good management commentary and some of them had amazing dividend yields of more than 5%. Consider REC and PFC (though slightly different from PSU banks, but can qualify as PSU NBFC) which had nearly 10% or more dividend yields. And now see the kind of returns these companies have generated. Look at the kind of market apathy these companies and sectors suffered and since how long… That is an example of neglected sector.
Pulak Prasad advocates buying into good companies for very very long term. But here too, we need to define what a good company is… Can it be a chemical company which is vulnerable to raw material prices volatility, end product demand fluctuations etc? For what a truly great company is, we need to go to Warren Buffett’s definition of a good company. Or read Peter Lynch on consistent growers or stalwart companies. These may qualify for long term or near permanent ownership. ( In this day and age, I am not a big fan of commiting myself to permanent ownership of a business. But that’s also partly how I am wired to think. 
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@newone I don’t track Glenmark or any of its group companies or their corporate developments.
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