New-age tech companies like Zomato maybe a good bet as 'froth is subsiding'

The new-age company stocks like Zomato had a rough 2022 with the stock still over 50 percent down from its listing price. However, Sridhar Sivaram, Investment Director at Enam Holdings, believes that the firm is starting to engage with new-age tech companies as a lot of froth is out of the sector.

"The new age tech companies have seen a spate of large exits in companies like Zomato, but the other way to look at the space is profitability, which is improving, metrics are improving and now the old guard is moving out and fresh blood coming in," he said.

Market watchers expect growth will come back in the second half of the year for these stocks.

"We need to be ready with our analysis on which are the good companies and what is the right price to enter some of them, what is the business model, do they have a path to profitability. I am not against any of the new-age companies. Some of them are good companies but the question is, what is the price we are paying for it,” Sivaram said while speaking to CNBC-TV18.

Sivaram says there are pockets where one can make money but need to trade carefully and need to be sure that earnings growth or outlook on earnings on such stocks are good.

“The mistakes I made in 2000, I didn’t make in 2021 and 2022. So, the experience of managing money over a period did help, but a lot of the froth is out. But does it mean that the macroeconomic environment looks great? It doesn’t,” he said.

Overall, 2022 was a tough year for the markets and the market watcher expects 2023 to follow the trend.

“This is going to be another challenging year; like we saw in 2022, we will see a lot of ups and downs, at least for the first 6 months, at least that is my view that better to protect capital in the first 6 months and take a call post that,” he said.