“These are exactly the points in time where things look very ugly — and if you have a medium to long-term view, it has always been profitable to deploy money during risk-off events like this,” Ved told ET Now during one of the sharpest single-day selloffs in recent months. “This one is no different.”
Is this time different?
The conflict in West Asia has rattled global markets for four to five consecutive days, with crude prices spiking on risk premium. For India — a net oil importer — the consequences are tangible: imported inflation, pressure on the current account, and the spectre of demand destruction. Access to discounted Russian crude offers a short-term buffer, but Ved is candid that “higher oil prices help nobody.”
That said, he draws a firm line between a prolonged structural shock and a temporary geopolitical risk premium. In his view, markets are currently pricing in the worst-case scenario — and that mispricing is where opportunity lives.
“The time to buy defensives was before the event. Now is the time to buy what has been most damaged.”
Don’t buy defensives — buy the damage
Ved’s most pointed advice cuts against conventional wisdom: investors who rush into so-called defensive sectors now are making a tactical mistake. The window to position defensively has already passed. Instead, he argues that stocks hit hardest by the oil spike — but fundamentally strong otherwise — carry the highest recovery potential once the risk premium unwinds.
He also expects domestic institutional investors, including large mutual funds that have been sitting on accumulated cash, to use this dip as a deployment opportunity — providing a floor of support that retail investors often overlook during panic selling.
Where to put money to work
Ved named four broad areas where he sees genuine value emerging from the selloff.
ETMarkets.comETMarkets.comThe bigger picture
Ved’s framework is not one of reckless bottom-fishing. He explicitly acknowledges that the duration of the conflict — and therefore the oil risk premium — remains unknowable in the short term. But his decades of experience point to a consistent pattern: investors who hold their nerve and buy quality names during risk-off events consistently outperform those who wait for the all-clear signal, which typically arrives only after much of the recovery has already occurred.
For now, his message to investors is disciplined and direct: if the stocks on your watchlist are suddenly trading at valuations you couldn’t access two or three quarters ago, the geopolitical fog may be doing you a favour.