Ashwini Agarwal decodes 3 reasons why market has bounced back in last few weeks

"The other thing that happened was that in early March, obviously, there was this banking crisis which was unfolding in the United States and partly in Europe. And that seems to have found some sort of a closure in the sense that while there are still issues out there with the smaller banks, the loss to the aggregate system in terms of market cap involved or in terms of the potential fallout on larger banks that is quite contained," says Ashwini Agarwal, Demeter Advisors.

For a market which was staring at a possibility of a breakdown, we have a print of a new all-time high on the Bank Nifty and hopefully soon on the Nifty, what has changed? And why it has changed?
One is that the outlook for interest rates and inflation has dramatically changed in the last couple of months. If you look at the inflation data in the US, you look at inflation data in India, it is all pointing to the fact that RBI's decision to hold was right and giving everyone the confidence that a pause by the Fed is now obviously given whether they cut a few months from now or not, remains to be seen. So I think that is the first thing that happened.

The other thing that happened was that in early March, obviously, there was this banking crisis which was unfolding in the United States and partly in Europe. And that seems to have found some sort of a closure in the sense that while there are still issues out there with the smaller banks, the loss to the aggregate system in terms of market cap involved or in terms of the potential fallout on larger banks that is quite contained.

So I think where people were worried that look is this a repeat of 2008 and are we starting to see a big sell-off? I think now zooming out a little bit, people believe that financials are not significantly at risk especially the larger ones.

And that narrative has sort of solidified over the last six weeks or so. So I think those are the two things I would say that have helped significantly. And lastly, the earning season has been fairly constructive in India. We have seen raw material prices come off and that is speeding through to higher gross margins across a whole host of manufacturing companies leading to hopes that as demand kind of kicks in, you will see operating leverage play itself out. So I think those are, I would say, the three things that have helped.

I look at the market and I say, okay all time high, but frankly I am surprised that DII cash holding are all time high, open interest 30% lower than when the previous high on the Bank Nifty was on an aggregate basis. FIIs, they may have bought for 13 days on a row but the number is still a fat negative for the year. So can I say that now is the time when the naysayers will turn believers and everybody is feeling the fear of FOMO?
I do not know, it is too early to say. I will look at the mutual fund inflow numbers for the month of April. I mean, despite a very solid market performance, the net inflow into equity mutual funds for the month of April was roughly one-third of what it was in March.

So typically, of course, March you see a peak every year, but I think the April numbers surprised me. I thought that with the market finding some legs, you will probably see at least a Rs 10,000 crore print. So the enthusiasm was missing among the domestic investors. Foreign investors or rather FII flows if I think about it, it is a very unpredictable number because it is driven by a whole host of factors.

What is happening to EM allocations, within EM cross country flows, I am told by people who follow other emerging markets that China is again starting to kind of fall out of favour in a relative scheme of things so that might have helped.

So, these are shifting stands. I do not think that we can take a cue from foreign inflows over the last 15 days and say that over the next two months they will continue to be biased. But I will tell you something, if I look out over the next 18 months, India is probably one of the few countries that is growing at a reasonable pace with a fairly healthy banking and financial system in place.

And in a world that is starved of growth, anything, any country that will post growth or companies that will post growth will get bid up and that is something that we should not oversee.

Anything that is scarce gets bid up history has always told us that. So in that context, I think over the next 18 months or so, I would be very constructive on investor interest from overseas into India.