Good time to buy and rebalance your portfolios, says Invesco MF's Taher Badshah

The US Senate passing USD 2 trillion virus relief bill that lifted investor sentiment in Indian equity markets. Both the benchmark indices extended gains on Thursday in the morning. Moreover, experts also expect domestic stimulus to be announced soon.

Taher Badshah, CIO-Equities, Invesco Mutual Fund said, it is always debatable and difficult to say whether we have found the bottom.

"What is happening here is that clearly the circumstances, which are required for value buying to be undertaken or to be able to find opportunities or to be able to seek value are clearly materializing. However, should one act immediately or in a staggered manner is something which is debatable. It is all dependable on individual’s risk appetite."

So the big question - Is it probably the best time to invest? Perhaps not but  clearly among the better times to invest, said Badshah.

“What is significant or what is clearly similar across all these periods is investor psychology and that doesn’t seem to change. For us, drawing from even the most recent learnings around the market turbulence of either demonetization times or IL&FS days is that these are the times when you get an opportunity to rebalance your portfolios,” he added.

“This is a time when we are spoiled for choice, we have got lot many opportunities in a market and probably time as well at our end,” said Badshah.

Speaking about the coronavirus pandemic, he further mentioned, “The number one priority across the world is about controlling the pandemic more than anything else. There are certain countries,  which are doing lot more even in areas of monetary and fiscal stimuli, which we have not been able to do. So I think it is a good time to buy, it may not necessarily be the best time to buy.”

“There will be a lot more healthcare awareness as we go along but our focus still continues to remain on some of the entities, which have a lot more to do with healthcare than pharmaceuticals. We have a preference for only a limited set of companies in the pharmaceutical space at this stage,” Badshah added.

“Maximum damage has happened in the financial space. The challenges are still there. There is a genuine concern about the market, about the impact of the slowdown as a result of the lockdown and the extended situation of an economic degrowth or economic slowdown," he said.

"So, we need some more action from the authorities, from the government to be able to assure that the banking system is relatively safe. Until we see some more high conviction government action and expected stimulus, I think banking sector is probably also going to find it difficult to participate strongly in the recovery,” he said.

“Consumer discretionaries, industrials, little bit of pharmaceuticals, technology might perhaps  be slightly better-off under these circumstances,” he stated.