Time to book partial profits in equities next week

Business

oi-Sunil

By Sunil Fernandes

Published: Saturday, July 20, 2013, 10:43 [IST]

The Sensex has crossed 20,000 points this week. While it may have breached this level the real story is that it has jumped this week largely on the back of a rally in TCS, which reported a good set of numbers and the sudden jump of 12 per cent in the Hindustan Unilever stock.

In fact, the Sensex over the last few years has risen on the back of ITC, TCS, HUL, Infosys, HDFC and HDFC Bank. Largely, Hindalco, State Bank of India, Tata Steel, ICICI Bank, Larsen and ONGC from the Sensex have gone nowhere. The 20,000 Sensex figure paints a distorted picture with most of the top mid cap stocks hitting 52-week lows.

It's a market that is hardly fair. For example, Hindustan Unilever is trading at a price to earnings multiple of 40 times, while State Bank and Hindalco are trading at almost one third of that. It's not a fair market in the sense that pharma, technology and FMCG keep rising, while the brick and mortar stocks keep falling.

But, if the economy does recover, be rest assured that these beaten down names could see a sharp recovery in their stock prices.

This week all eyes would be focused on the results of heavyweights including L&T, which is set to announce results on Monday. The results season so far has been good, particularly for TCS and Infosys. Reliance was in line with expectations, while HDFC and HDFC Bank was a little disappointing. Stocks next week are likely to move in tandem with results, though it's time to book partial profits in stocks like HUL and TCS.

The cash can be used to buy into shares, including some PSU banks which are quoting at half of book value.

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