IT looks good: Dhiraj Agarwal, Standard Chartered Capital Markets

Dhiraj Agarwal, Director, Institutional Equities, Standard Chartered Capital Markets, in a chat with ET Now talks about IT stocks and the sectors which look good.

Besides energy and metals, what is looking most attractive right now to you?

IT looks good. We are quite positive on cement as well from a longer term perspective. The Western markets are doing quite well which is positive for IT and similarly longer term we are quite positive on eventually infrastructure demand kicking back in.

Bulk of the over supply in cement is sort of behind at this point. We are positive on select FMCG stocks as well and one contrarian call we have as a house is telecom. We are positive on both Bharti and Idea.

Given the kind of volatility Indian markets are experiencing, what could be called as a safe haven buying?

These days there are no safe havens and all the classical safe havens are all quite often getting butchered along with the rest of the market. Rather than falling into the classical trap of what is safe haven, what is defensive and what is not, it is best to look at specific stocks.

I would say not even sectors but specific stocks because in the last couple of years I have noticed that given any market backdrop we have seen diversion moves across different stocks within the same sectors.

So look for specific stocks which have growth and reasonable value and anything which is attractively valued or cheaply valued at this point of time and good quality management would act as a safe haven.