“The core story is not changing too much,” Jaipuria said. “We are probably on the cusp of an earnings recovery cycle and we will see earnings recovery happening.” He cautioned that a sustained period of very high oil prices could shake India’s macro stability, but his base case is that the disruption lasts four to eight weeks before conditions begin normalising.
ETMarkets.comBanks: The highest-conviction call
Jaipuria’s strongest sectoral conviction sits firmly in banking — and notably, his bullishness is independent of the war. Two structural tailwinds are converging. Credit growth has remained resilient with low defaults, while net interest margins, which have been under pressure for the past year as deposit repricing lagged rate cuts, are set to expand meaningfully in the next fiscal year as that lag unwinds. Earnings growth that has been subdued this year should rebound sharply in FY27, and valuations remain reasonable relative to that earnings trajectory.
“Banks is definitely an area where we are very bullish. Earnings growth which has been relatively subdued this fiscal will rebound in the next fiscal — and valuations are not very expensive,” says Jaipuria.
Commodity trades: One leg done, unwind risk real
On coal, defence, and other conflict-driven trades, Jaipuria was deliberately measured. While he acknowledged that Coal India and aluminium stocks have benefited from the supply shock, he cautioned that a significant portion of those moves are now tactical rather than structural. “If we start seeing tensions cooling or some agreement happening, a lot of these trades will unwind,” he said. His framework is to ask whether he would still want to own a stock in a normalised, no-conflict scenario — and for many commodity plays, the honest answer is no.
Defence: Electronics over hardware
Valentis holds a small position in defence, concentrated in electronics and component suppliers rather than the large platform companies like HAL or Mazagon Dock. Jaipuria’s thesis is that modern warfare is increasingly electronic — making the suppliers of defence electronics and components the more durable long-term play. The constraint on taking a larger stake: valuations in the sector are not cheap, which limits his conviction at current levels.
IT: Four years underweight, now tactically nibbling
After being underweight IT for four years on the view that AI would erode growth, Jaipuria said valuations have now fallen enough to justify selective, tactical positions. The fear of AI disruption has become so widely held that it may already be more than fully priced in at current multiples. That said, his long-term view remains unchanged — Indian IT services companies are likely to grow more slowly than in the past, and any bounce should be sized accordingly rather than treated as a structural re-rating.