Same time next year, Sensex may be at 29,000

MUMBAI: The Deutsche Bank has set its target for Sensex at 29,000 by December 2016, about 12% above Thursday’s closing price. The investment bank said corporate earnings are likely to turn around in 2016 led by urban consumption and public investments. Its top stock picks are BPCL, Godrej Consumer, Lupin, Bajaj Corp., Cummins and Federal Bank, among others.

“While further consensus earnings cuts cannot be ruled out completely, we believe that the cuts may be shallower than what has been witnessed in the past 3 quarters,” said Deutsche’s analysts Abhay Laijawala and Abhishek Saraf in a note to clients. “…earnings should benefit from reflation in WPI, signs of an urban consumption recovery and the translation of the unrelenting push on public investments by the government, apart from a benign base effect”.

At Deutsche’s Sensex target of 29,000, the index will trade at 17.3 times estimated earnings of the financial year 2017. The five-year average price-to-earnings multiple of the Sensex is 16.3 times. “The multiple is justified given our FY17 Sensex EPS growth of 18%, which compares favourably to earnings CAGR (compounded annual growth rate) of 10% over the past five years (FY10-15),” the Deutsche analysts said.