Both Biden or Trump will do more stimulus but obviously, this is a very contested election that will keep the markets nervous for a period. Donald Trump is not going to lockdown the American economy whatever happens with COVID-19. If Biden wins, the markets will definitely believe there will be a lot more stimulus. When I last looked at the Indian data, it was encouraging in the sense that the cases were falling and the key thing in India is that there are no more lockdowns.

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Christopher Wood, Global Head of Equity Strategy at Jefferies

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Our two preferred markets are the US and China and equities. That will remain the case regardless of the outcome of this (US Presidential) election. We were always neutral on India at least for the last two years. The decline in coronavirus and the opening of states and the better numbers like auto numbers are all constructive for the Indian market, we don’t dislike it, we just prefer China.

Mark Matthews of Bank Julius Baer

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According to McCafferty, Trump victory means short-term positive for US equities but longer-term negative for issues such as diplomacy and world trade relations. If we get a Biden win, that brings longer-term certainty, not just for the US but for the rest of the world. For markets like India, long-term we have demographics, which is very attractive but clearly we got this COVID uncertainty to get out of the way. So I think near-term we would rather be positioned in China, Korea, Taiwan and Japan.

Jim McCafferty, Global Markets Research at Nomura

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Purely from a fundamental perspective, we have seen the best of margins for the large cap IT and we have seen probably amongst the best of P/E multiples for the IT stocks. One has to be a little careful on buying into IT. However, if there is some kind of correction down the line, I think one needs to revisit the secular growth story of IT and be more focused on that and maybe then again there is a buying opportunity there but for now, one has to be careful on the large cap IT names.

Nilesh Shah, MD and CEO of Envision Capital

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We know that rates are low and they are likely to remain low as till 2023 so there is plenty of liquidity. There is plenty of liquidity regardless of who wins the elections, but for India’s case specifically it is really going to depend on when growth comes back. The one change versus the previous time for foreign investors would be that this time they will want to see growth comes back first before the funds flow versus in the past when a lot of time capital has flowed in, in anticipation of growth.

Shiv Puri, Founder and Managing Director, TVF Capital Advisors

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The second half for us will be definitely better than the first half. Because of the surge witnessed in healthcare, this year the contribution from healthcare business will be around 40 percent. Contribution from home and personal care business is expected to be around 40 percent against 50 percent last year and food contribution is expected to be around 20 percent.

Mohit Malhotra, CEO of Dabur India

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Retail sales showed better numbers as compared to September, going forward we expect the month-on-month (MoM) recovery to continue. ICV trucks saw good demand, the numbers were up 25 percent for the industry compared to September. A lot of construction activity is happening, so a lot of transportation of aggregate material, even tippers in the ICV segment especially in the states of the northeast – we are seeing a very healthy demand. We expect some of this to continue.

Anuj Kathuria, COO, Ashok Leyland

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Equity markets are looking through the short-term noise and are assuming that whoever gets in. We are going to see another wave of stimulus to come. Investors should have a good weight in sectors that have done well during the COVID period like IT, pharma and some of the e-commerce related stocks.

Jonathan Schiessl, Emerging market strategist

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The big focus for us right now as revenues have been nil is to really reduce our fixed cost and we have managed to do that. We have brought down our fixed cost down by almost 75-80 percent. One of the big success that we have also managed to achieve is also to speak to our landlord partners and we have been able to get rent waivers from most of our landlords for the period we have been shut.

Nitin Sood, CFO, PVR

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We expect debt to reduce to Rs 7,000 crore by end of FY21. The deleveraging cycle is over and going forward our debt to EBITDA number will be increasing and therefore the return on net worth will also be increasing.

Prashant Jain, Joint MD & CEO, JSW Energy

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In industrial, specifically in automotive if you see, September SIAM numbers of passenger vehicles had shown good growth. October-November so far whatever has been reported from the auto industry are good numbers. So, all this indicates that there is positivity around. I am positive about demand going forward. We have enough capacity to cater the current demand.

Anuj Jain, ED, Kansai Nerolac Paints

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We had given a 15 percent guidance growth and we have already crossed 14 percent. So, naturally this year we should see higher growth. I am not revising the target, but definitely it will be more than 15 percent. There is no stress in gold loans as collateral value has gone up. Higher gold prices have acted as a cushion to coverage on loans.

George Alexander Muthoot, MD of Muthoot Finance

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We are the H1 bidder at 25 percent premium over the index and if the government of India, ministry of mines hand it over to us then it will take about 10-12 months’ time to commence mining. Last time also we were the highest bidder from JSPL side but government of India decided not to hand over the mines to us and they continued with Coal India. So we do not know government’s decision as of now.

VR Sharma, MD, Jindal Steel & Power Ltd

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(Edited by : Abhishek Jha)