Industry honchos, star investors raise a toast to Brexit on Twitter

NEW DELHI: From positive and patient to negative and alarming, Dalal Street was whistling on Friday with all sorts of commentaries from market stakeholders as Britian voted to bid goodbye to the 28-member European Union block.

As a reaction, the domestic equity market saw a freefall on Friday following global cues. The S&P BSE Sensex lost as much as 1,090.89 points in intra-day trade but recovered slightly at the end to close at 26,397.71, with a loss of 604.5 points. While it looked like it was a bloodbath on Dalal Street, top CEOs and star investors were largely confident of Indian market.
Porinju Veliyath, Founder & CEO, Equity Intelligence India, saw a tremendous opportunity in Brexit and called for France and the Netherlands to exit the EU.

"Thank you Brexit for the wonderful opportunity today, eagerly waiting for Nexit (dutch) & Frexit (France)- #StockPicking in world's most promising economy!," he tweeted.



Veliyath said watch-maker Titan and two-wheeler maker Bajaj Auto trended higher in Friday's trade, thanks to Brexit. "Bajaj Auto & Titan at new highs today, as Britons will henceforth buy Pulsar instead of Jaguar and Titan instead of Rolex," he tweeted. Titan closed 0.59 per cent higher while Bajaj Auto gained 1.01 per cent in Friday's trade.

Shankar Sharma, VC and Joint MD, First Global, was proud of himself for predicting Brexit ahead of others. He retweeted the tweets of people who had congratulated him for having got it right.




Samir Arora, founder and fund manager, Helios Capital, banked on the monsoon and the passage of the Goods and Services Tax bill and felt unnerved by the historic event. "We can handle Rexit and Brexit as long as we don't have Gexit and Mexit," he tweeted.


Nilesh Shah, MD, Kotak AMC, seconded him as he believed that Brexit will dim the chances of rate hike by the US Federal Reserve. "With Brexit, chances of Fed rate hike happening this year have become remote and that is good news for the Indian market. Second, as Britain decides to leave European Union, it needs to build relationships and alliances with other countries, India will be one among them. It is a long-term good news for the Indian economy and Indian companies," Shah said in a conversation with ETNow.
Raamdeo Agrawal, Joint MD, MOFSL, called on investors to go shopping stocks. "Buy more of the same as people will try to book profits rather than booking losses. So my sense is, we might, among our list of stocks which we are buying or thinking of buying, use this opportunity to spend whatever cash we have to buy into them. That would be our strategy," he told ETNow in an interview.
Among the top CEOs, State Bank of India chairman Arundhati Bhattacharya felt that the domestic market may shiver along with global counterparts but ultimately Brexit offers potential advantages for India.

"As risk aversion sets in, there would be a decline in financial markets and India would see this impact along with other nations. But as trade strategies are reworked, there could be potential advantages in the form of better market access for India to the EU and Britain," she said.

Biocon CMD Kiran Mazumdar-Shah went so far as to thank god that Raghuram Rajan was still heading the Reserve Bank of India amid the uncertainties that Brexit has unleashed. "It (Brexit) has opened up a Pandora's box of grave uncertainties. Will the euro remain intact or will we see others exit? What will be the impact on the euro itself? Will it devalue and to what extent? How will India's bilateral trade with UK and Europe be impacted? How much will the USD strengthen against the pound sterling/euro/rupee? It's fortunate that we still have Raghuram Rajan at the helm of RBI at this critical time," she said.