RIL has announced its entry into the highly competitive FMCG sector via Reliance Retail. CJ believes new competition could hurt valuations of FMCG stocks but Santo sees limited risks. Watch the duo clash heads over what RIL's entry means for FMCG stocks plus their thoughts on Escorts and BLS International
In an interview with CNBC-TV18‘s Latha Venkatesh and Sonia Shenoy, Prashant Jain, Executive Director & Chief Investment Officer, HDFC Mutual Fund said the economy was close to bottoming out, and both interest rates and inflation have peaked.
Key equity benchmarks close slightly down, but way off the intra-day highs which saw the Sensex touching levels last seen 20 months and 23 months ago, respectively.
FMCG stocks have been long considered as a defensive investment bet when the overall markets are in turmoil. The sector played its role to perfection in 2011. While the broader Nifty index has slipped 24% from its close on Dec 31, 2010, the CNX FMCG index is up 9%.