Arihant Capital Markets expert Mileen Vasudeo predicts that the Nifty will hit a target of around 18,800, and could go beyond that to 19,000. She also expects Bank Nifty to approach levels of 43,700 to 44,200. While IT showed a rebound on Friday, Vasudeo notes that it is currently in a downtrend and is unlikely to outperform the benchmark indices. Vasudeo recommends buying FMCG stock Britannia with a target price of 4800 to 5000, and also DLF with a higher target side of 474 to 500 levels.

"I think there is a lot of steam left in PSUs still, particularly one pocket, and that is the defence sector PSUs. We will see a lot more action there. We did see some amount of correction over the last few months and stocks like Mazagon Dock, BEL, HAL all have corrected. And after correction, of course, it has gone up in the recent last few days, but even after correction, the way they are positioned now if somebody is taking a one-year-plus time horizon, they do look good."

"We are in for a good time. Now how good it is going to be, we will have to see as there are a lot of global challenges. But I think 6-7% growth is going to happen."

PI Industries' foray into the pharma industry through two acquisitions will diversify its business and reduce its dependency on agro. The access to CDMO business of pharma will give the company access to global markets in the US, India, and Italy. The deal, valued at 4.2x EV/EBITDA, will be EPS accretive on existing numbers alone and is expected to be 7-8% EPS accretive going forward, with further growth of the two acquired companies contributing to 12-15% EPS growth over the next two years.

So I think that is one reason where we are seeing more inflow into fixed income instrument in comparison to equity.Second, big reason has been the equity market for nearly 21-22 months have been flat.

Mahindra Manulife MF's Krishna Sanghavi believes that the current market offers a good opportunity to invest in undervalued companies that have not yet participated in the market. He sees a healthy growth in Indian corporates and earnings, despite business mix shifts. The market trend towards trading has shifted the focus towards derivatives and has led to a drop in long-term-based cash participation. He is constructive on the market for a 12-month view, given valuations and growth potential.

Indian Hotels CEO, Puneet Chhatwal, anticipates a rise in healthy room rates and occupancy as demand for travel outpaces supply over the next two years. He anticipates growth in business travel recovery, as well as growth in the leisure industry. Additionally, he notes that the Taj brand has been integral in allowing the company to gain more market share and grow.

​Especially in BFS, we have seen a few clients getting into a hiring freeze. So those are primarily the reasons why we did not see the ramp up that we expected earlier but at the same time, our pipeline is very strong.

Of course, we have some more work to do to get a better picture of what the remainder of the year will look like depending on the macro, but at this point we do believe that we should at least able to give a market-level growth in the direct ex-mortgage business for FY24.