Nifty may hit 19000 by March next year, Q1FY23 trends remain robust; ICICI Sec bullish on rate sensitive shares, picks 25 stocks—Full list

Despite calendar year (CY) 2022 starting on a negative note with Omicron scare, fear of nuclear war between Russia and Ukraine, inflation and rising bond yield, the trends for Q1FY23 remain robust.  

"High-frequency indicators for Q1FY23 so far appear robust and indicate economic recovery is on course," said ICICI Securities in a note on Monday.  

It said that along with these multiple headwinds, more than expected hawkishness of the US Federal Reserve and India’s RBI resulting in an increase in the ‘risk free rate’ as sovereign bond yields spiked and acted as a double whammy for equity valuations.  

However, with sharp reduction in omicron cases, stabilising commodity and bond yields, Ukraine-Russia war scaling down from global nuclear brinkmanship to a local conflict, economic recovery appears on course and they put a put a floor on equity valuations too, said the brokerage.  

"Dip in the latest PCE inflation data for the US, general cooling down of commodity prices and the expected increase in oil output by OPEC+ will likely add credence to the peak inflation argument," said ICICI Securities.  

Based on its evaluation, the brokerage sees Nifty hitting 19,000 in March 2023. "Incorporating these factors and trends, our Mar’23E target for the NIFTY50 stands at 19,000," it said.  

The brokerage was overweight on stocks driven by investment rate, savings rate, credit growth, exports and pent-up discretionary consumption. 

ICICI top 25 stock picks:  

SBI, Axis Bank, HDFC Bank, Aditya Birla Capital, SBI Life, Larsen &Toubro, NTPC, NHPC, GAIL, Oil India, Coal India, UltraTech Cement, Bharti Airtel, Tata Communications, Gujarat Fluorochemicals, Phoenix Mills, Brigade Enterprises, Greenpanel Industries, Indian Hotels, Jubilant Foodworks, Metro Brands, Sapphire Foods, Inox Leisure, TVS Motors, Eicher Motors. 

Meanwhile, equity benchmarks Nifty 50 and Sensex have managed to give a positive return of 2-2.5% in the past three months as on June 6, 2022. During the same period, Auto, FMCG and Energy stocks have gained the most as Nifty Auto and FMCG rose 14% and nearly 11% respectively, while BSE Energy gained around 12% so far on Monday.  

At around 2pm on Monday, the broader Nifty50 was trading flat with positive bias and was approaching 16,600-mark, while 30-share was trading 20 points higher to around 55,800.