Market rally had everything. Except money for small investors

Small investors seemed to have missed the bus in the big rally post September 20 corporate tax cut surprise from Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman that lifted the equity indices by up to 8 per cent in a week’s time.The rally mainly saw stocks, where institutions such as MFs, FPIs or LIC have large exposure, log solid gains, but stocks with high retail exposures failed to find buyers.Analysts attributed this to the fact that many of the stocks that retail investors are exposed to are fundamentally weak. As such, the rally eluded such stocks.Among the 10 top-performing BSE500 stocks ever since the September 20 corporate tax cut, there was only one in which individual investors (retail investors and HNIs) together held more than 20 per cent stake.Out of the 45 index stocks where individual investors together held at least 25 per cent stake, 32 underperformed Sensex’s 7.5 per cent return.Stocks such as Jain Irrigation, Granules India, Nava Bharat Ventures, Tata Coffee and Infibeam Avenues delivered zero returns.Heavily beaten-down stocks like Reliance Communications and Reliance Power fell 15 per cent each, taking their year-to-date fall to 91-95 per cent.Among others, Intellect Design Arena, DHFL, GIC Housing Finance, PC Jeweller, Jaiprakash Associates and Suzlon Energy saw their stocks fall 5-11 per cent during this period.VA Tech Wabag, Meghmani Organics, The Lakshmi Vilas Bank, Sonata Software and EID Parry (India) and Rain Industries gained up to 3 per cent during this period.In contrast, shares of LIC-promoted IDBI Bank have rallied 31.5 per cent since September 20, after plunging 56 per cent since January. State-run LIC holds 51 per cent stake in the bank while the government holds 46.26 per cent.Indiabulls Integrated Services, where FPIs held 23.4 per cent stake, jumped 27 per cent, cutting its year-to-date loss to 61 per cent from 68 per cent earlier. PSU firm BPCL has climbed 26 per cent since September 20, taking its year-to-date gains to 32.3 per cent. Stocks such as Ashok Leyland, Shilpa Medicare, ICICI Securities, HPCL, Godrej Properties, Motilal Oswal Financial Services, IndusInd Bank and Siemens have gained over 20 per cent in this period.None of these stocks had retail holdings in excess of 15 per cent. “Do not expect midcaps with stress on balance sheets or lack of earnings visibility to perform. As a pack, midcaps can outperform from here on,” Gautam Duggad, Head of Research at Motilal Oswal Securities, told ETNOW.Edelweiss Securities said while the correction in midcap stocks has been led by a fall in valuation multiples, earnings downgrades have only been mild.In June quarter, midcap earnings fell 5 per cent against the annual consensus estimate of 15 per cent growth, which would require 20 per cent growth in the rest FY20.“Two-thirds of the midcap100 stocks have seen earnings downgrades of less than 15 per cent in last one year. This means some more earnings cut ahead. And that space is not a blanket buy yet,” Edelweiss said.

from Economic Times https://ift.tt/2ovgJ4j