Sensex crashes 1,500 pts: Rs 7 lakh cr wealth wiped out, but it is still a buy

India’s benchmark Sensex took a major pounding on the Dalal Street in early Monday trade, crashing more than 1,000 points, but stock market experts are not painting any bleak picture for local equities yet and instead see steady growth prospects and weak global commodity prices to aid sharp revival in local shares.
Although, over Rs 7 lakh crore worth of investors’ wealth may have been wiped out in today’s crash so far, experts see the freefall as a good buying opportunity as India still remains a rare bright spot in a weakening global economic scenario.Jayant Manglik, president, retail distribution, Religare Securities Ltd said, “In such markets, the Indian economy still remains a bright spot. Of course, low commodity prices are good for India but a global slowdown is not. Anyway, this is no Black Monday, it is a buying opportunity and sharp investors are looking for good openings in specific stocks. Operationally, there are no issues due to stringent margin requirements.”
“Our markets may well be first off the block in recovering from this fall, it is time to look for bargains in high quality stocks,” said Manglik.
In an interview with CNBC-TV18, Atul Suri, trader with Rare Enterprises, said the extent of fall in Dow and global indices will have a knock-down effect on India though India will relatively outperform, it will stand out among emerging markets and will be the first market to recover.
Suri further added, India will benefit from big global commodity meltdown. Sharp corrections in the market are always an opportunity to buy, current dip is an opportunity to buy into IT & pharmaceuticals.
He expects money to flow back to IT and pharmaceuticals, and sticks to his Nifty target of 10,460 with a stretched time frame. He still feels that we are a part of a larger bull market and retains long-term bullish view on Indian market and is optimistic on India in the medium to long-term.
According to G Chokkalingam, founder & managing director, Equinomics Research & Advisory, India’s equity market would also be impacted badly in the short term along with the global rout; however, it would fall lesser than rest of the global markets.
Further, Faster GDP growth among the major economies, a huge saving of import bill due to oil price crash, comfortable fiscal balance, current account balance and steep fall in inflation rates, etc would help the economy to recover both the economies and equities faster. Hence, our markets would once again outperform relatively rest of the global equity markets and also recover absolutely once again unless the US Economy falls quite badly, added Chokkalingam.