”But look you have to have the right kind of mindset and more importantly, time frame because if this correction phase lasts for some more time, then you may see more fall in these stock prices,” says Dipan Mehta, Director, Elixir Equities.In this fall, there is one group which is still the high growth space, which is platform companies. They have also corrected. Zomato from 300 came down to 210, maybe 230 right now. Similarly, for Policybazaar and also for Nykaa. Can one say that in this fall, instead of buying value, which is typical PSUs, power, utilities, do not buy them, because that is a bet on economy, buy high growth, which is a bet on discretionary spend, which is a bet on new India, which is a bet on technology and efficiency and productivity.Dipan Mehta:Yes, I would agree with you. I would absolutely agree with you that in yourportfolioyou have to have a balance of these new age businesses as well. And if you look at the corporate earnings, all of these companies which you named have been following through, they have been reporting top line, bottom line as per street expectations and now their valuations, whether you take price to book or price to earnings multiple or EV to EBITDA, all of those multiples certainly have come down. So, investors who do not have adequate exposure to these platform companies, new age businesses should certainly take this opportunity and invest in these companies.But look you have to have the right kind of mindset and more importantly, time frame because if this correction phase lasts for some more time, then you may see more fall in these stock prices. At the same time, to expect good returns you need to have a holding horizon of at least three to five years or beyond.But I agree with you that these are great companies. They have proven their business model, they can scale up really well, they have great operating leverages as well. So, one should have a few of these in their portfolio and I would say that look at some of the profitable ones as well. I mean, I know companies like IndiaMart, there is another company Zaggle Prepaid, which reported slightly weaker earnings, but very good business model. And then there is Affle India, very impressive set of numbers, which came through for the December quarter, that is also a platform company into advertising. So, like that, there are a few, I would say, highly profitable platform type of business companies and one could focus over there. And of course, there is Zomato and PB Fintech which also merit a look in from an investor’s perspective.The other talking point is tariff. So, by Saturday when Prime Minister Modi is back, we pretty much would know that which way the tariff regime is moving for India. So far, there is no restriction on India. So far, the tariffs have been on expected lines. They are much lower than what markets were anticipating. They are not something which in a sense is going to have very damaging impact at least to Indian exports per se. So
Mar. Feb 11th, 2025
