It was a nervous and volatile April for the Indian equity markets as it faced heightened news flow related to Covid and imposition of partial lockdowns, which led to bouts of sharp corrections. However, investors have looked beyond the current challenges and used every correction as an opportunity. As a result, the Nifty-50 index ended the month with minor losses of 0.4%, whereas broader markets did better with the BSE Mid-cap and BSE Small-cap 250 indices gaining 0.7% and 4.1% respectively.
The results season has started off well and it is expected that earnings will continue to be higher than expectations. Though the surge in Covid cases will surely have an impact in the April/June quarter, the partial lockdowns will mean that it will be much shallower than last year.
India has underperformed the global peers in the near term driven by the sharp increase in covid cases. However, emerging market flows continue to be buoyant, and our view is that near term outflows from FPIs will reverse into huge inflows, as Covid 2nd wave starts to mellow down. Domestic flows continue to be strong and can also accelerate from here. Thus, we would recommend using any dips as an opportunity to correct any equity underweight. Broader markets have been doing much better than “Quality at any Price” and this trend will only strengthen in the year to come.