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Merchants’ Chamber of Commerce & Industry organised a Capital Market Conclave on April 21, 2023, Friday, at a city’s star property. The main speakers were Shri Nilesh Shah, Managing Director, Kotak Mahindra Asset Management Co. Ltd., and Shri Saurabh Mukherjea, Founder & Chief Investment Officer, Marcellus Investment Managers. Other speakers included Smt Diva Jain, Director, Arrjavv Builders, and Shri Ravi Jain, Chairman, Council on Capital Markets, MCCI.
Shri Namit Bajoria, President, MCCI gave the welcome address.
Shri Bajoria welcoming the speakers said, in FY 23 despite the benchmark indices closing flat, a total of 191 stocks returned over 100% to investors. Investors, he said, were interested in shorter tenure schemes and equities were critical to it. Pointing out to the continuous repo rate increase by RBI from 5.90% to 6.50% between September 2022 and April 2023, Bajoria said that continuously increasing repo rate by 500 bps by the US Fed was the prime reason for the Silicon Valley Bank to collapse. He hinted at the underlying danger of the weaker banks if repo rates continued to go up. Similarly, the SVB collapse had shaken the sentiments of the Indian Capital Market. Tech stocks, he said have been plunging mirroring the slide in the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite. “Many believe that this would have an adverse effect on the growth of the global economy including India”, Shri Bajoria said.
Shri Nilesh Shah, Managing Director, Kotak Mahindra Asset Management Company Ltd, said, that the healthcare sector, will propel growth for the long term in India just as the IT sector did. He said 40% of the medicines consumed in America are made in India. Apart from the healthcare sector, “we will need to make our digital infrastructure strong, leverage free trade agreements so that it creates a win-win situation and avoid scoring self-goals. India has scored goals against itself in the power sector in terms of tariff implications and in investing in dead assets like gold. In terms of manufacturing, 14% of the companies are coming out of China but that should reach 50%, Shah said.
Saurabh Mukherjea, Founder and Chief Investment Officer, Marcellus Investment Managers, echoing Shah said the healthcare sector would lead the growth in India but four changes namely physical infrastructure, change in tax structure, banking reforms, and India Stack- strengthening digital infrastructure have pushed growth.
While Mukherjee insisted on hard work and said that twenty companies were quietly making money through hard work, he said in India investors should be given the opportunity to grow and should not be pushed to the web of compliance. There should be a conducive regulatory environment to enable growth. Shah said that to be successful in the market, one should invest in good companies on a long-term basis and stay in the market.
According to Shri Shah, India should give preferential access to capital and share skilled and disciplined human resources with the rest of the world, when it signed FTAs.
MCCI in a statement pointed out that there were possibilities of interest rates further hardening to control inflation but if that happened it would be at the cost of growth. However, against the backdrop of such macroeconomics India’s stock market capitalization to GDP was 84%, which indicated that the stock market was fairly valued. Indian equities were trading at a P/E of about 20x which was greater than its historical level of 16x and also relatively more expensive than emerging market peers. The number of demat account holders in India continues to grow, with 11 crore accounts as of January 2023 in comparison to 8.4 crore as reported in 2022. Even with these massive figures only 3% of Indian households actively invested in the stock market, the MCCI statement said.
Shri Ravi Jain, Chairman of the Council for Capital Markets said, markets cannot always move in one direction. Investors should be reassured and encouraged to play on the front foot as the present point was the time to take action and seize opportunities, especially after the market has remained stagnant for the past months. He said SEBI’s real-time monitoring has made the Indian capital markets a much safer place to trade in.
Shri Prateek Chaudhury, Chairman of, the MCCI Council on Start Up gave a hearty vote of thanks to all the speakers, dignitaries, guests, and sponsors.
