D-Street will start feeling poll pain in a month: Samir Arora

There might be a relief rally in India for some time, as India Inc’s June quarter earnings have come out quite well, says Samir Arora, a Dalal Street veteran and founder and fund manager of Singapore-based Helios Capital.

Equity benchmarks BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty are currently hovering around their life-time high levels. “Right now, the market is reacting positively to the earnings and the focus will shift towards elections may be after 30 days,” he said.

In an interaction with Avanne Dubash of ETNow, the fund manager shared his views on market outlook, his sectoral preferences and what he is betting on in the current market.


Sectorwise, he believes 60-70 per cent of the pain in the telecom sector is over, but Reliance Jio will continue to add stress in the sector.

Arora is bullish on two themes in India – financialisation and formalisation. He said the pain point for public sector banks seems to be plateauing. But he is not buying PSU banks as yet due to the weak underlying fundamentals. “I buy a business when I feel I am going to hold it forever,” he said.

Arora says consumer stables are commanding very high P/E in India in the consumption space. “I own only Nestle within the staples space,” he said.

He also owns companies from air conditioner as well as media space within the consumption space.

Arora doesn’t see any real reform in the oil marketing sector anytime soon and is avoiding the OMCs at current levels.

He says he does not buy Tata Motors type of companies. “We like Indian companies rather than global ones. It has nothing to do with India, apart from listing in India. We bet on India, not on Indians,” he said.

He regretted having missed the bus in the IT sector by not owning the two big companies. “Forex moves are tampering gains for IT,” Arora said.

Commenting on the pharma sector, he said he does not think much has changed in this space. “The government is trying to control prices in the pharma sector, which is a matter of concern,” he said.