Portfolios of seasoned investors including Rekha Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, Radhakishan Damani, Ashish Kacholia and Vijay Kedia, have parked hundreds of crores in select stocks, often attracting interest of Dalal Street investors. A number of retail investors do try to cherry pick their top bets.
Interestingly, some of these ace investors have picked some of the bluechips as their biggest bets, while others have confined themselves to stick with quality midcap and smallcap names in terms of making it big. Majority of biggest bets of the marquee nave have announced their results for the December 2024 quarter and analysts tracking them are largely positive on these stocks in the longer run.
For instance, RK Damani has owned 45,07,407 shares, or 1.27 per cent stake in Trent Ltd, which is worth more than Rs 2,485 as of today. However, we have not considered Avenue Supermarts as Damini's top stock as he is among its promoters. Similarly, Jhunjhunwala owns 4,57,13,470 or shares or 5.14 per cent in another Tata Group firm Titan Company worth little more than Rs 15,700 crore.
InCred Equities believe the structural story of market share gains for Titan Company Ltd remains intact, despite intense competition & volatile gold/solitaire prices impacting consumer demand. "Margin pressure is expected to persist. We retain our 'add' rating on Titan, despite near-term weakness, with a higher target price of Rs 3,850 as we roll forward our valuation," it added.
Among the overseas brokerage firms, Goldman Sachs has maintained a 'buy' rating on Titan with a target price of Rs 3,900, while Macquarie and Morgan Stanley have kept their 'outperform' stance intact on the company with prices of Rs 4,150 and Rs 3,876, respectively.
Commenting on Trent’s 3Q results, Kotak Institutional Equities said that it missed expectations on account of lower than-expected SSSG. According to Trent, SSSG was in high-single digits, suggesting a normalization versus many quarters of consistent double-digit growth, said Kotak. "We bake in lower SSSG and margins. This drives a revised target of Rs 5,550," it added with a 'reduce' tag.
Foreign brokerage firms Bernstein and Morgan Stanley have maintained their 'outperform' rating on Trent with target prices Rs 6,900 and Rs 8,032, respectively. Citi has a 'buy' rating but trimmed its target price of Rs 7,800, while Jefferies has maintained 'hold' on Trent with a target price of Rs 5,800.
Another marquee name Mukul Mahavir Agarwal sold 2 lakh shares of BSE Ltd but still owns 1.33 per cent stake or 18,00,000 shares of the leading exchange. His take in the company is more than Rs 1,000 crore. Shares of BSE have zoomed near 30 times in the last five months.
The impact of five out of the six new F&O regulations has been seen on notional volumes, while premium turnover has started to improve. Strong listing activity has boosted BSE’s revenue and profitability, said Motilal Oswal. "Increased member participation, colocation monetization, and sustained momentum in premium turnover will be key growth drivers for BSE," it said.
"Factoring in the impact of SGF contribution, we have cut our PAT estimates for FY25E by 11 per cent. We raise our earnings estimates by 3 per cent each for FY26/FY27, considering the maintained momentum in premium turnover. We reiterate our 'buy' rating on the stock with a Target price of Rs 6,900," Motilal added.
Despite a decent December 2024 quarter, HDFC Securities believes that with increase in market share and shift to longer duration contracts, the SGF requirement will gradually increase. We maintain our 'reduce' rating based on SGF uncertainty and growth moderation in FY26E," it added with a target price of Rs 5,280 on the stock.
Atul Ltd is the biggest stock in the portfolio of Vijay Kishanlal Kedia,who owned 58,02,017 equity shares or 20.91 per cent stake in the company as of December 31, 2024. Kedia's stake in the speciality chemical player is worth nearly Rs 360 crore.
Atul has corrected sharply in the past three months. It is in line with most chemicals sector stocks that have underperformed the Nifty Midcap Index, which fell a mere 5 per cent, due to continued oversupply from China and weak commentary from major global firms regarding demand recovery, already reflected via a weak margin environment, said Elara Capital.
"Global chemicals majors expect weak demand growth across most products and the challenging pricing environment at least until H1CY25. We remain cautious on the chemicals sector. We reiterate Accumulate with a lower target to Rs 7,129," Elara added.
However, Motilal Oswal has a 'buy' rating on the stock with a target price of Rs 8,455, while Kotak Institutional Equities suggests to 'sell' this Kedia with a target price of Rs 5,140.