Amid market sell-off, Rakesh Jhunjhunwala was busy buying these beaten down stocks

Even as the Indian market sell-off dampened sentiments and resulted in heavy losses for market participants during the last two months, it could not deter ace investor Rakesh Jhunjhunwala from shopping in beaten down stocks in the same period. After the Sensex lost 14% or 5,640 points and Nifty fell 14.71% or 1,730 points in less than two months, investors including Jhunjhunwala booked heavy losses in their portfolios.

On August 29, 2018, the Sensex and Nifty hit all-time highs of 38,989 and 11,760, respectively on strong Q1 earnings show, record FII inflows in July and August and rise in global markets.

Since then, investors lost Rs 25.71 lakh crore in terms of market capitalisation.  

Sensing an opportunity, Jhunjhunwala who is famous for identifying beaten down stocks with high growth potential bought 13.34 lakh shares of Dewan Housing Finance during the July-September quarter when the stock crashed 60% last month.

The big bull raised his stake to 3.19% at the end of September quarter compared to 2.8% for the quarter ending June.

Sensing a big opportunity during the crash, Jhunjhunwala bought the distressed stock to raise his holding to 1 crore shares for the quarter ending September compared to 86,65,264 shares in the previous quarter.

On September 21, the Dewan Housing Finance stock fell up to 60 per cent or 364 points in trade which spurred heavy selling in other housing finance stocks.

The Sensex, which gained 6.16 per cent and 2.76 per cent in July and August, fell 6.25 per cent in September amid fears of liquidity crisis triggered by a debt default by the IL&FS group.

Unfazed by the fall, Jhunjhunwala raised his stake in TV18 Broadcast by 0.4 percent by purchasing an additional 62.5 lakh shares of the firm.

He raised his stake from 2.6% for the quarter ending June to 3% the quarter ending September 2018. The stock has lost 39.72% since the beginning of this year and fallen 31 percent since July 1.

The ace investor also raised his stake in pharma firm Jubilant Life Sciences during the last quarter.

He bought five lakh shares of the firm raising his stake to 1.57% at the end of September quarter compared to 1.26% stake or 20 lakh shares at the end of June quarter.

At the end of September quarter, Jhunjhunwala had 1.25% stake or 75 lakh shares in Ajay Singh-led budget carrier SpiceJet. In Titan Company, he held the maximum 5.16 crore shares or 5.82% stake in the company at the end of September quarter.