'Don't think serious investors are ...': What Deven Choksey says on stock market fall

Deven Choksey, MD of DR Choksey FinServ Private, on Thursday, said the stock market witnessed a "decent and sharp correction." In an exclusive interaction with Business Today, the market expert said, "It takes time for the market to go up but it doesn't take much time to come down. We have seen around a 3,000-point fall in Nifty50. I think we are done probably and maybe there's some small pain left at this of time. This pain is coming from those people who have been holding the stocks on the leverage positions. I don't think that serious investors are selling anything. Most long-term investors have been buying in every fall. In my viewpoint, one should be adding selective fundamental companies into the portfolio."

Choksey pointed out that some people have made their judgement based on second-quarter (Q2 FY25) results. "I think they missed out completely that the festive season happened in the third quarter. In Q3 FY25, we are looking at the highest-ever GST collection, SIP collection in mutual funds, insurance premium collection and provident fund (PF) collection. These are positive signs," the market veteran stated.

He also mentioned there's a negative narrative that FMCG companies are not finding urban consumption, which is not the case. "We are forgetting that in urban consumption, the complete habit has changed as we have moved to quick-commerce. We are getting used to the instant buy and that is where we are seeing the shift. Eventually, we are going to see that consumption will remain in parity with economic growth. Third- and fourth-quarter results are distinctly looking promising. The automobile sector had a decent sale in October. So, things are turning around and turning around for the better," the market specialist suggested.

Meanwhile, Indian equity benchmarks continued their losing run today, dragged by FMCG stocks. However, broader markets (mid- and small-cap shares) were in the green.

5 out of the 16 sector gauges -- compiled by the NSE -- were trading in the negative territory. Sub-indexes Nifty FMCG and Nifty IT were underperforming the NSE platform by falling as much as 1.49 per cent and 0.07 per cent. In contrast, Nifty Realty, Nifty Media, Nifty Auto and Nifty Metal were up.

The overall market breadth was strong as 2,146 shares were advancing while 1,687 were declining on BSE.

Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) sold Rs 2,502.58 crore worth of shares on a net basis during the previous session, while domestic institutional investors (DIIs) bought Rs 6,145.24 crore worth of shares, exchange data showed.