Positive on consumer durables, cautious on infra: Patnaik

Tirthankar Patnaik - India Strategist at Mizuho Bank told CNBC-TV18, "The way the Indian macro is performing and the way the Indian economy is growing up, we would see some amount of fillip on consumption. Lower cost of funds over the next two to three quarters are likely to boost consumption as well especially in the durable space. We have seen that happening over the last two to three months. So, we maintain our positive stance on the durable space in consumption." "However, in India, we would be cautious on certain sectors. We remain cautious on public sector banks and remain positive on private sector banks – that valuation differential has expanded but we would maintain so. We don’t see it as a time where one would want to enter public sector banks as a contra bet. We would maintain our caution on the telecom space about what is happening. We believe that voice revenues would continue to get cannibalised going forward. Byte data especially after one player has announced 4G right now, we are likely to see 4G major announcement before the year is out. So, telecom is one space we would remain cautious about," he said. "We would again see a little bit of caution is cement and infrastructure. These spaces are where growth is likely to remain tail-ended and what we will be pushing in India is consumption. What we will be pushing in India is global plays like IT, pharmaceuticals and auto ancillaries. Commercial vehicles (CVs) in the auto space have also done well, 2015 was a year of very low base rate but we see movement happening there as well. So, auto in general and auto ancillaries in particular will be sectors that we would be positive on in India over the next two to three quarters," he added.