Indian economy in an upswing; higher crude price may destroy demand: Bank Julius Baer

Mark Matthews of Bank Julius Baer & Co, on Wednesday, said that the Indian economy is in an upswing.

“The problems for the economy with the non-performing assets, the major structural reforms that hit the small and medium-sized enterprises and the unofficial economy are in the rear-view mirror and the economy is in an upswing. So people feel good about that and that is reflected in the flows domestically,” Matthews told CNBC-TV18.

He explained that higher crude prices can lead to demand destruction. He added that wars are always inflationary in nature and the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine will impact the commodity space.

“It is going to cause demand destruction and it will bring down global growth. I believe that will happen. In fact, we just revised our global growth forecasts to down yesterday (April 5) and a large part of the reason is the high cost of energy, but to round off what I wanted to say that demand destruction, in turn, will cap energy prices from going up much more, we think,” said Matthews.

On the US market, Matthews said that the S&P 500 will continue to rise and take out new highs. He expects the biotech space to outperform this year.

He said, “Biotechnology, I do not think it's a big sector in India, but it's been a big laggard, I might add since 2015 thereabouts. I think it's underperformed by 50 percent and we think that biotech will outperform this year.”

Watch the video for the full interview.