“Most firms are reporting a very strong January. Something seems to have turned in the second half of December,” he said, speaking at the Axis Capital Advantage India conference.
According to Mishra, the early signs were visible in credit data. “We at the bank had started seeing improvement in demand for corporate credit,” he said, adding that the recovery now appears fairly broad based. While a couple of pockets may still be soft, “nearly everywhere, there seems to be a lot of strength.”AI impact on IT stocks
Mishra believes investor concerns on IT stocks are not about near-term performance but about longer-term uncertainty. “It’s the terminal value of these companies that is being questioned,” he said, describing the current phase as a price-to-earnings multiple de-rating driven by uncertainty rather than earnings downgrades.
He said even if companies report strong order momentum or near-term revenue growth, “that won’t solve the problem.”
Sharing the on-ground investor mood, Raman Jauhar, MD and Head of Equities at Axis Capital, said this year’s annual investor conference has seen an unusually strong turnout, especially from overseas investors.
Also Read: India’s growth story intact and less tied to global swings, says Axis Capital
According to Jauhar, global funds are no longer visiting India only to assess the macro picture. Instead, they are deploying larger teams and doing deeper, bottom-up work to identify investable opportunities, including in small- and mid-cap companies and new emerging sectors.
From a sectoral perspective, Jauhar said investor interest is increasingly centred on banking and manufacturing. Banking, in particular, is seeing improving commentary from lenders as credit growth picks up and is widely seen as a key beneficiary of the economic upturn.
On foreign portfolio investor flows, Mishra said emerging markets are beginning to attract capital again, helped by concerns around US market concentration and valuations. India, he added, is now starting to surprise positively on growth after a period of earnings disappointment.
Mishra also reiterated that the recent pickup in credit validates the view that the slowdown was largely a supply-side issue. He said easing liquidity by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) could further support the recovery, and warned that markets may move sharply once momentum turns, as passive and momentum-driven investing becomes more dominant.
For the entire discussion, watch the accompanying video
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