'India Is Not Anti-AI': Samir Arora Argues Against Global Perception
The market veteran also explained why investments in Ather and Physicswallah IPOs have worked for Helios Capital.
India's lack of correlation with the blistering rally in the US is being witnessed as an "anti-AI play," which Helios Capital's Samir Arora believes is an unjustified take.
Some investors view India as an "anti-AI" play because its stock market isn't dominated by AI-heavy companies the way the US, Taiwan, or South Korea are. Instead, India's growth is anchored in domestic demand like financials, consumer goods, manufacturing, rather than the global tech cycle.
That makes the market less vulnerable to a sharp unwind in AI-driven stocks and positions India as a relatively safer destination if the global AI frenzy starts to cool.
Arora also adds that for him, stock picking is essentially a process of elimination, in an exclusive discussion with NDTV Profit. "It's a screening process where you eliminate the bad," he says. Parameters to determine the same could be whether that's a sector vulnerable to disruption, an industry with cut-throat competition, a theme overly dependent on government action, or a business weighed down by a poor history.
Samir Arora On IPO Investments
Arora also shared his outlook on his primary market investments, and the overall Indian equity ecosystem. From a broader market perspective, heavy selling by foreign investors has hit large caps — the very basket FIIs tend to own, including IT, financials and consumer names. Arora doesn't see much excitement in IT right now, and he believes big consumer stocks have lost their shine amid very low growth rates.
Banks, however, are a clearer call. "We like bigger banks because smaller banks have turned out to be absolute disasters," he says.
Helios' discovery portfolio has found traction this year. Ather has worked, and so have beaten-down IPO names such as Paytm, Zomato and CarTrade. Competition, too, is often misunderstood, says Arora.
The performance of Helios' IPO picks has been strong, with Ather Energy trading at a 105% increase form its IPO price, Jain Resources at 88%, and Urban Company and Travel Foods also trading higher, Arora had said earlier. Another of Arora's picks on the IPO front has been Physicswallah, which has also been trading 22.54% higher since listing.
"When a new entrant comes in, the market thinks it's competition — we think it's sanity," Arora says. And in his view, if the number one and number two players in a sector aren't doing well in the stock market, the number three player has little chance of going public at all.
