Dalal Street’s biggest stocks may be monopolising portfolios, but they are no longer driving returns. Samco Mutual Fund CIO Umesh Mehta says Nifty’s mega caps are “languishing” as widespread institutional ownership leaves them with few incremental buyers, even as growth and earnings momentum migrate further down the market-cap ladder.
Samco has responded with an unusually aggressive positioning in its Flexicap fund, allocating around 70–75% of the portfolio to mid caps, small caps and select micro caps, while maintaining limited large-cap exposure. Although Mehta sees mega caps offering downside protection, he believes investors seeking growth must take calculated risks beyond the headline indices.
Edited excerpts from an interview.
The Nifty 50 has delivered little at the index level over the past two years, even as sector-specific activity has continued, particularly in mid- and small-cap stocks. Where do you think the market is in the current cycle?
The largest Nifty 50 companies by market capitalisation are languishing. These are mega-cap companies, and traditional businesses globally are not receiving the valuations they historically commanded.
Fortunately or unfortunately, traditional businesses account for a large part of our indices. That is why the headline indices have not generated the kind of returns investors might have expected over the past two or three years. But if you move beyond the mega caps and look at the next rung of the market—mid caps and small caps—there is considerable activity. That should continue because numerous opportunities are opening up.
The world is changing rapidly. Government spending remains supportive, while global developments sometimes provide tailwinds and sometimes create headwinds. There is considerable flux: some stocks are performing well, while others are languishing.
At an aggregate level, smaller pockets of the market are moving, but a significant part of the market—large caps and mega caps—is doing very little. Even for foreign institutional investors, it can appear as though India is going nowhere.
In this environment, a bottom-up approach will help investors, traders and asset managers. They need to focus on individual stocks instead of looking only at the headline indices.
After two years of underperformance, do mega-cap stocks now offer value, or should investors continue looking beyond them?
When stocks underperform, can they become good investment opportunities? The answer is yes. But the second question is whether it makes sense to invest in a stock that is already fully owned by everyone. The answer may be no.
Everyone who wants to own these mega-cap stocks may already own them. Every fund and asset manager may have exposure to them, leaving few net new buyers. Even if incremental buyers emerge, there may also be incremental sellers. Investors therefore do not necessarily need to own all these stocks.
The other consideration is where growth is coming from. We are largely looking at growth investing. Small caps, mid caps and other growth stocks are rising, and their valuations may be high because their businesses are growing and investors are willing to pay for that growth.
The market offers a wide spectrum of risk-reward opportunities. Investors seeking safety can consider large mega caps because they may offer downside protection. Those seeking growth will need to take calculated risks and invest in growth companies.
Flexicap funds often tend to have a very strong large-cap bias. How have you positioned Samco Flexicap Fund in this market?
Flexicap funds have traditionally been managed as surrogate large-cap funds. We have instead built our portfolio around the areas where the action and momentum are.
Around 70–75% of our portfolio is tilted towards small caps, mid caps and some micro caps, with very limited exposure to large caps. That is where the market action is, and the portfolio has been designed to capture those opportunities.
The overall earnings season was very good. Mid- and small-cap companies, in particular, delivered an earnings season that broke several records.
Do the earnings delivered by mid- and small-cap companies justify their valuations and the subsequent rally?
We need to differentiate between the sources of those earnings. Did the improvement come from inventory gains, with companies liquidating stock at higher prices, or is there a genuine industry tailwind? Has geopolitics allowed a company to create a sustainable earnings and revenue stream? There are many moving parts.
At an aggregate level, the numbers were good and stock prices reflected that performance. But will the momentum sustain across the board? Obviously not. Supply-chain restrictions remain and are likely to have an impact. The same earnings numbers may not be repeated over the next three or six months.
Some companies will continue to benefit from the advantages they have captured. Refining margins are one example. Integrated companies may face difficulties, but pure refining businesses that are not also involved in retailing could have a significant opportunity. Russian refineries and some Middle Eastern capacity are moving out of the system, which could increase refining cracks and support the earnings of pure refiners. These companies have created genuine economic streams from the war.
Defence is another sector that has developed—and should continue to benefit from—a strong earnings tailwind because of geopolitics. Opportunities will continue to emerge.
Besides defence and oil and gas, which sectors look attractive?
Power, at an aggregate level, offers a significant opportunity. The challenge is that the stock market discounts developments faster than they unfold on the ground. Power projects take time and can face delays, creating a mismatch between secondary-market expectations and project execution.
Over the past three or four years, power stocks have experienced a whipsaw, moving sharply in both directions. Following the correction, the sector looks attractive again, but it remains a long-term theme requiring substantial capital expenditure before earnings follow. Demand and growth are present, but investors need a longer-term horizon to realise that potential.
AI ancillaries also present an opportunity, much like real-estate ancillaries such as cables and related products. Trillions of dollars are being spent globally on artificial intelligence, and Indian companies will participate in parts of that value chain. This could include heavy electrical cables required for power transmission, optical-fibre cables and other AI-related infrastructure.
These opportunities could remain relevant over the next one to two years. Growth investing can work in such areas, and higher valuation multiples may sustain, rewarding investors willing to take the associated risks.
Within power, do you prefer power producers or companies linked to power-sector capital expenditure?
Both. Power generators are undertaking capital expenditure and expanding across thermal, solar and wind power. However, these projects take time to deliver. The opportunity exists, but investors must be patient rather than chase stock prices.
There is also a substantial opportunity in power-sector capital expenditure. India requires investment not only in generation but also in transmission, distribution and substations. In metropolitan areas, distribution will increasingly move underground from the present overhead system. That creates a large opportunity for heavy electrical-cable manufacturers and the engineering, procurement and construction companies that install those cables.
The opportunity is sizeable, sustainable and potentially high-margin. Capacity cannot be created overnight, so heavy electrical-cable manufacturers could have a significant profit-pool opportunity for the next year or two.
Power capital expenditure is currently a very hot market theme, and valuations have risen. However, the sector will correct again because bidding up a stock is much easier than executing a project on the ground. When quarterly numbers fail to meet expectations, some liquidation will follow. Power will remain cyclical rather than move in a straight line. Several power-capex companies are also exporters.
Could exports become a bigger opportunity for power-related companies than the domestic market?
India has performed well in domestic power and solar manufacturing, and today there is overcapacity. Globally, however, solar capacity remains inadequate outside China. The US has a substantial deficit and needs additional power generation, although vested interests and lobbying are affecting the entry and impact of renewable-energy players. Politics therefore plays an important role alongside economics.
Solar is the quickest way to add power capacity, as India has demonstrated. China and Europe are also expanding, and the US will eventually have to do the same. But these opportunities will not be determined by economics alone; politics will remain an important factor.
Indian companies with solar-cell and module-manufacturing capacity currently face headwinds, although the sector retains considerable long-term potential. Nuclear power is another emerging theme, but its gestation period will be long.
Is this the right time to invest in the nuclear-power theme?
When we speak with industry participants, they indicate an eight-to-10-year time frame before the first nuclear power begins flowing and companies start earning from it. That illustrates the length of the gestation period.
The stock market can bid up share prices well before plants are established. When the narrative is driven by a theme, government support or a policy tailwind, the relevant stocks can rise. But as time passes and execution does not immediately follow, those stocks can become available at lower valuations.
That would be the more appropriate time to evaluate nuclear-power investments, rather than bidding up the stocks now, including companies catering to the broader nuclear ecosystem.
Could the high earnings base begin weighing on sectors such as automobiles and consumption from the second half of the financial year?
Automobiles are a typical sector where the base effect could become visible. The GST reduction was the opposite of a black swan—a “good swan.” That favourable window is likely to end, after which the high-base effect will begin to play out.
The auto index is already correcting. The last phase of the rally was concentrated in auto ancillaries, where considerable euphoria emerged. Eventually, reality should set in.
Maruti is near the bottom of the return table even though Maruti, Hyundai and Mahindra are among the biggest customers and value accumulators for these ancillary businesses. Auto ancillary stocks have outperformed the passenger-vehicle manufacturers they supply. The market should eventually recognise this divergence. The cyclical effect will reassert itself, leading to a correction and normalisation in prices.
Some auto-ancillary companies are increasing exports and diversifying into areas such as aerospace. Could that cushion the domestic slowdown?
Exports represent a significant opportunity, although their current contribution remains small for passenger-vehicle and commercial-vehicle manufacturers in aggregate. The impact is more visible for ancillary companies because the incremental export opportunity is substantial relative to their size.
India aspires to become a global manufacturing and automotive hub, and the government is supporting that ambition. These companies continue to generate domestic sales while also expanding exports.
If exports perform well, they could make the Indian automobile sector more secular and less cyclical from an investment perspective. For now, however, exports remain a relatively small proportion of the business. The high-base effect in the domestic market should therefore result in mean reversion, with automobile stocks likely to correct.
Over time, investors should monitor export growth. Bajaj Auto, for example, is performing very well in overseas markets, and other companies will eventually attempt to expand their export presence.
How do you assess the current IPO momentum and the quality of new listings?
IPO momentum is strong, but if it keeps accelerating, it could take momentum away from the secondary market. Liquidity is the biggest driver of stock-market performance. If liquidity is absorbed by primary issuances, that may be positive for the economy, but it can create difficulties for the secondary market.
If increasingly large IPOs continue to arrive, retail money channelled through mutual funds is absorbed by new supply, and FIIs do not return, the net liquidity equation becomes adverse. When liquidity deteriorates, markets can correct.
Either FIIs must return and provide enough liquidity to sustain the market, or IPO supply must slow. If fundraising continues at this scale, it could wreck the market. One of those two conditions needs to change for the market to sustain. We have seen this dynamic since 2024.
The supply pressure is not limited to IPOs. We are also seeing offers for sale, including LIC’s ₹32,000-crore OFS, along with numerous qualified institutional placements.
Consider the market as an investor facing a series of suppliers. If one issuer takes ₹30,000 from the investor and another subsequently seeks ₹20,000, the investor must either find additional money or sell an existing holding. At an aggregate level, a continuous stream of new supply eventually forces selling in the secondary market, creating a cascading effect on prices.
With the possibility of interest-rate cuts and renewed momentum in gold, how should investors approach asset allocation?
The past five or six years were very good for equities, but they were also very good for gold. Over the next two, three or five years, gold will remain an equally important asset class that investors should not ignore, as long as the current US administration remains in power.
Gold has historically delivered strong or comparable returns. The probability of gold generating better risk-adjusted returns is now much greater than it was two, three or five years ago.
As geopolitics intensifies and currencies are increasingly weaponised, the world is recognising that gold is money. Governments and investors cannot rely exclusively on electronic forms of money. A reserve currency gives its issuer the power to impose sanctions. If that currency is repeatedly weaponised, countries will become more inclined to diversify into gold because their savings are otherwise held in a system that can be used against them.
The reported freezing of a judge’s assets because of a decision favouring a particular country is another trigger for governments and investors to reconsider their gold exposure. Gold is currently in a strong secular bull-market trend.
Investors should allocate to gold through instruments such as exchange-traded funds or multi-asset allocation funds. It is time to consider gold alongside equities as a means of preserving wealth because markets can surprise on both the upside and downside.
For a moderately aggressive investor with a five-to-10-year horizon, should the allocation to gold exceed 10% and potentially reach 15–20%?
Easily. Whether one begins the comparison in 1979, 2000 or 2010, gold has generally delivered returns that were either better than equities or within one or two percentage points of them. Although gold’s long-term return has been slightly below the Sensex, it remains a wealth creator.
Gold cannot manipulate itself and does not generate negative or positive earnings surprises. It is a pure demand-and-supply asset: if demand rises, its price increases, and if demand falls, its price declines.
The precious-metals universe is also relatively simple, consisting primarily of gold and silver. By owning one asset, investors have historically generated returns, whereas equity investors must select from thousands of stocks while managing a much wider spread of risks to deliver a similar outcome.
Gold is therefore a valuable asset class. Over a one-year horizon, it could deliver better returns than equities. Over five to 10 years, its returns should be broadly in line with equity returns.
