Latest news with #PrashantKhemka
Time of India
09-05-2025
- Business
- Time of India
Geopolitical tensions not yet a red flag for investors: Cameron Brandt
"Historically, things have to get pretty bad before investors really get chased out of a market and while there will certainly be more caution until this gets resolved, I do not think it is going to completely reverse the flows that sort of India funds and sort of Indian asset markets in general I have seen in recent weeks," says Cameron Brandt , EPFR Global . Like I was discussing with Prashant Khemka from White Oak Capital as if there was uncertainty in the world and now you have this situation between India and Pakistan going on. And we have known historically that money always moves in a relative fashion and that is why I guess for the last one-month India was seeing inflows come in because there were a lot of things which were going right. Do you think now with the India-Pakistan situation that gets derailed at least in the near term? Cameron Brandt: Diminished rather than derailed is what I would say. I have just been looking at the latest week's numbers and while flows into dedicated India funds are not quite as strong as they have been, they are still positive. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Join new Free to Play WWII MMO War Thunder War Thunder Play Now Undo What I have been picking up is that at least for the moment investors and fund managers are putting more weight on the benefits to India of much cheaper oil than they are on what is or was until the latest about regarded as you know spat. But historically, things have to get pretty bad before investors really get chased out of a market and while there will certainly be more caution until this gets resolved, I do not think it is going to completely reverse the flows that sort of India funds and sort of Indian asset markets in general I have seen in recent weeks. Live Events But other fact is that especially on the trade talks, we have seen that at least getting started now because just yesterday a trade deal between US and UK has been announced. There is a possibility that maybe EU and India and even China the talks will be on. Give us some sense that at least in this term where are we headed, is the worst behind us with respect to the tariff tantrum and what could be the next with respect to the market and the reaction. Cameron Brandt: Given the current US administration, never say never. But I actually think that a lot of investors who used President Trump's first term as a template have certainly been expecting that after the sound and fury a somewhat more palatable midpoint would be reached. We have certainly seen fixed income investors recover risk appetite over the past three weeks. Equity investors are still being somewhat cautious. It is not clear how much damage has been done and how much that damage will influence earnings for the remainder of the year, but certainly when I look at flows to fixed income funds, junk bond funds, mortgage backed funds, bank loan funds, and indeed emerging markets bond funds, all of those are starting to see money again after a pretty sharp hiatus in early. You can see how charged up and emotional things are out here in India right now. And more importantly, when it comes to India and Pakistan, there is so many other country dynamics. You have got Turkey, you have got the Middle East, you have got China, and you have got the US dynamics as well. For the last one month that India has been seeing inflows, it has also been somewhat of a tactical play India versus China. Do you think that will completely get reversed now? Cameron Brandt: I do not. You mentioned sort of the geopolitical complexities and the fact that there more actors than just India and Pakistan. But the global financial markets have been living with a version of that now for three years. The situation in Ukraine also puts Turkey somewhat close to the action. Russia has gravitated to China for support. Europe and US are feeding arms to varying degrees into Ukraine. So, intensely as you and your viewers feel the current situation and it certainly, it is not that it could not get worse, but financial markets have been living with an equally contentious and indeed long running geopolitical event with some pretty big actors behind the main protagonist. So, as I said earlier, people will certainly be watching, but in the short run, frankly, the fact that India's oil bill is going to get much cheaper, that seems to be where it is heading, will provide a pretty heavy counterweight to any geopolitical uncertainty.
Time of India
09-05-2025
- Business
- Time of India
Market cautious, not panicking; see opportunities in 4 sectors: Prashant Khemka
Prashant Khemka , Founder, White Oak Capital Management , says global investors prefer stability, especially in regions with significant investments like India. Recent market dips suggest a cautious but not panicked response to current events. Opportunities remain across sectors like financials, healthcare, consumption, and technology. The focus is on bottom-up stock selection rather than top-down sector predictions, emphasizing individual opportunities. The escalation of India-Pakistan tension saw the VIX spiking up about 11% yesterday. History tells us that this is at best a knee-jerk reaction. The equity markets will dust it off and pick it up again. But what are we staring at this time because the GIFT Nifty looks shaken up. Prashant Khemka: Situations like these cause uncertainty for the markets. As an Indian, certainly our prayers and thoughts are with the soldiers who are at the front in the midst of the action, but as far as the market is concerned, it is going to be a fast-evolving situation over the coming few days. How the situation develops from here, the market is going to react. Globally and in India, since the Kargil war, there have been a couple of instances which have de-escalated within a few days. Now, this one seems to be a little more intense than those instances and remains to be seen how long it takes. But ahead of any other news or any other source, the market would tell us how the situation is and it was 1% down yesterday, about a percentage point down today. That seems to suggest that the market does not believe at this point in time, this is going to get out of hand. There are tensions across the border, but FIIs are indeed showing resilience and for the past two to three days, when there was a bit of nervousness, the index did not perform that well. But in the cash market, the FIIs have been showing some resilience. Given the tensions, what kind of a sentiment can we see building up in their positions? What is the stance? Prashant Khemka: FIIs position can turn on dime. It can turn very quickly. It will also be a function of what the market does. The market has been resilient over the last three days and that has also given confidence to the foreign investors that this is nothing significant, nothing different from what has happened over the last couple of instances and they have not really been bothered too much about that. They are asking the questions, but they are not acting unnecessarily on it. But if the market were to react negatively, then they would become more nervous and we are likely to see that in the FIIs numbers. Market is a forward-looking beast. Today you are seeing a knee-jerk reaction on the gift Nifty, but who knows maybe by afternoon we will cover all this of a downtick. But eventually, it is going to come back to basics. It is going to come back to what happens between Trump and China, how they maneuver on tariffs. The US-UK trade deal has been announced. What are the key triggers that the market is going to be working with?Also, we are in the midst of the earning season and it has been largely in line besides a few misfires here and there. Prashant Khemka: On the global tariff front, the news is positive, the developments are moving in the right direction. So, a month ago around this time, the markets were gripped with the volatility surrounding the tariff announcement. Since then, every incremental news has been de-escalatory if we were to use that word in this context. Live Events You Might Also Like: Will the escalating India-Pakistan conflict continue to rattle stock market? From all sides including Trump himself, there is a dial back of the positions after the initial ramp up of tariffs between US and China. This week itself, first of all, there was the UK-India free trade agreement (FTA); we had a deal between the US and UK now. That sets the tone and it is a precursor to many such deals that we are going to see between the US and other trading partners. It is a positive from where we were a month ago. We have come a long way on the global tariff front and that is a positive backdrop for Indian equity markets as well. The global backdrop ought to be positive over the coming few months particularly as tariffs were the primary concern over the last several weeks. When we get to interact with some of the investors right there, there has been a bit of a nervousness within the retail investor pack. But since the market is looking forward to the developments, given that we hope for some bit of a resistance in the times ahead, which are the pockets where you are finding margin of safety at this point in time? Prashant Khemka: There are opportunities across sectors. We historically have tended to have higher allocation in sectors like financials, healthcare, and consumption, as well as technology and that is the case right now as well. This is more from the perspective of where we see bottom-up stock selection opportunities rather than some top-down view on which sector would do well versus others, which we do not think works in any market. It is a zero-sum game, but it is really identifying the best opportunities within each sector. As an Indian investor, you do not want a neighbourhood in turmoil. Captain Gour was just talking about how politically sensitive Pakistan is getting and there is so much happening around us, what with the China-US dynamics, China-India dynamics, the world is in a flux right now. But as an India investor, how worried would you be with the turmoil that is happening in our neighbourhood and right across the border? Prashant Khemka: Certainly, the world is always in flux and things are always uncertain. It is just that at the point in time that you are in, it seems to be more uncertain than it was at any other point or most of the times in the past. But if you put yourself at any point over the last few years, the world is always very uncertain. You Might Also Like: Drone stocks rally up to 15% as high-tech sky assassins dominate India-Pakistan conflict Coming to the point that you are making about the neighbourhood, yes, global investors would want to see that the country is in peace time or business as usual. It is not common to have in today's day and age such conflicts while there are a few places that such conflicts are going on, but those places are not the ones where global investors typically have big exposure, be it Russia, Ukraine, or in the Middle East, these are not places where the global investors have big exposure. India is obviously where global investors have a very large exposure compared to at least these places. Naturally, there would be a desire for everyone to see normalcy return. But it is what it is and they would be watching carefully as would everyone in India.
