Bull's Eye: Short Escorts, Gail; buy ITC, Reliance Capital

Remember these are midcap ideas not just for the day, but stocks that look attractive in the medium-term as well.

This week, Sharmila Joshi of Fairwealth Securities, Rakesh Gandhi of LKP and Vishal Jajoo of Nirmal Bang battle it out for top honours.

Below their top stock picks and analysis:

Sharmila Joshi of Fairwealth Securities

Sell Escorts with a target of Rs 74.50 and a stop loss at Rs 77. This on the back of the news report that we’ve been hearing that they could be having some labor issues and we saw what a long drawn out issue that can do to a stock because we have just seen it play out with Maruti. While I hope that the problems for Escorts are shorter and smaller in comparison but I still think that the pressure on the stock will continue for a day or two.

I buy Exide . This is a bit of a play on the fact that numbers are expected. We must remember again that in the last quarter the numbers were particularly bad because of the higher input cost but the management has cut prices and they are expecting things will get back on track by the next quarter. So maybe a slightly improved performance from the company and a better outlook for the fourth quarter could take the stock higher. This I buy with a target of Rs 124 and a stop loss of Rs119.20.

Buy Dish TV with a target of Rs 64 and a stop loss at Rs 62. Digitization looks like its set to become a reality and the kind of penetration levels that we have, the kind of subscriber base that we are talking of make all the three stocks within the space attractive; Dish TV, Hathway, Del Networks. Hathway is a stock that I had recommended earlier which was really the run away stock for the week. Dish TV I would rate below Hathway Cables but I am really recommending it because the numbers are expected and maybe the numbers will be slightly better and will give us greater confidence to buy this stock with a slightly longer target.

Buy ITC with a target of Rs 215 and a stop loss of Rs 207.50. Numbers are expected on January 20th and typically one finds that the larger cap FMCG, HUL and ITC do their bit to hold the market when it looks like the rest of the frontlines are going through a slightly rocky patch. The way markets have closed it seems to indicate that maybe its time for HUL an ITC to move higher. So ITC is my last buy with a target of Rs 215.