Oil will fall back to $70–80, Sunil Singhania sees a buying opportunity in the chaos – News Air Insight

With crude oil hovering near $110–120 a barrel and West Asia tensions rattling equity markets, most investors are asking how bad it gets. Sunil Singhania, founder of Abakkus Asset Management and one of India’s most closely watched fund managers, has a different question: is this actually a buying opportunity?

Oil’s war premium won’t last, says Singhania

Singhania drew a striking parallel to silver prices, which surged from $50 to $120 over three months — and then collapsed just as fast. His view is that the roughly $25–30 war premium currently baked into crude is similarly unsustainable. On the supply side, he pointed to Venezuela ramping up output, the US permitting Russian oil sales, and India purchasing Iranian oil for the first time in seven years. Any conflict resolution, he argued, would bring Iranian supply back online rapidly — and structurally, global oil markets remain in oversupply in normal conditions.

India’s relative insulation — and the real risk

Singhania was careful to distinguish between the direct conflict risk — which he sees as limited for a predominantly domestic economy like India — and the more insidious secondary effects: supply chain disruptions, raw material shortages, and energy availability. These, he said, are already showing up in production cuts at some companies and the early FY27 earnings downgrades. He flagged yields rising to 7.05–7.1% as a warning sign for interest-rate-sensitive sectors including banks, infrastructure, and real estate.

On the flip side, he identified IT and pharma as near-term defensives — both receiving a rupee tailwind of 1–2% — and flagged renewable energy, particularly solar, as a structural long-term beneficiary as governments globally accelerate their shift away from fossil fuel dependence.

Global money is already coming in — just not through listed markets

Addressing concerns about foreign portfolio outflows, Singhania made a point that often goes unreported: while FPI selling in listed equities grabs headlines, billions of dollars in strategic investments have quietly entered India over the past six to eight months through banking, NBFC, and private equity deals — citing transactions involving RBL Bank, Shriram Finance, Federal Bank, and others. With India’s weighting in global emerging market portfolios at a 10-year low, he argued the reallocation trade back into Indian equities remains firmly intact.

His bottom line for investors sitting on red portfolios: 25–30 years of experience has taught him that the market recovers fastest for those who stay connected to resilient businesses — and that the discomfort of today is often the setup for tomorrow’s returns.