It wasn't a disruptive event, had fewer surprises, offered continuity and was mostly as expected.
That's how ASK Investment Managers' Chief Investment Officer Prateek Agrawal and Marcellus Investment Managers' Founder Saurabh Mukherjea described Budget 2022.
Instead, it built on the steps taken in the previous few years, Agrawal told BloombergQuint's Niraj Shah in an interview. "A lot of steps that were taken in past few budgets will continue giving the economy the much-needed fillip."
For Mukherjea, the budget was broadly along expected lines and had three relatively mild surprises. "The government hiking capex by 35-40% as opposed to expectation of 19%-20%, no extra taxes on the rich and taxing crypto at 30%."
The FY23 fiscal deficit forecast of 6.4%, according to Mukherjea "is an achievable number and the math looks realistic". "This budget will help with capex and economic recovery and strong private sector lenders will do well."
Agrawal concurred: "There's a very high probability of FY23 fiscal targets being achieved."
Themes To Watch Out
Global and local themes are intertwined very strongly at this moment, said Mukherjea. "Foreign institutional investors are enthusiastic about this theme."
"Building material companies like paints and pipes will benefit from infrastructure and real estate recovery," he said. IT services are also expected to do well. "Top global companies are heavily digitising, Indian IT is likely to create 2-3 lakh jobs each year for next few years."
"It is now global capital investing in India with Indian companies servicing the needs of the world," Mukherjea said. "We expect to see more money flow into Indian startups as well."
Agrawal, however, said that in terms of overall market and themes, the budget can do only as much. "The spend on capex is between 2 and 3% of the GDP. However, the more funds you put there, it moves the needle very little," he said. "Beyond a few days, it becomes whatever themes you were already focused on, they again start to take centre stage, which is what we believe will happen this time again."
Watch the full interview here:
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