The Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party’s strong victory in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections last week ensured policy continuity, which will be a benefit for India, said brokerage PhillipCapital. BJP won 303 seats out of total 542 seats in the general elections. “We expect augmented focus on infrastructure development and rural India; additional sectors that might gain focus would be railways, defence, ports, manufacturing, and SMEs. In its second term, the NDA government’s decisions are likely to be pro-growth with a keen focus on job creation (a challenging task),” said PhillipCapital in a research report dated 23 May.

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The brokerage said it expects economic activity to pick up in the second half of the fiscal year 2019-20 and in the FY21. It expects the Indian economy to grow at 7.5 percent in FY20 and 7.5 percent in FY21. “Other macro variables – interest rates, inflation, CAD, liquidity, currency, credit – are likely to be stable to positive. GST revenues should improve in FY21, aiding government spend and additional sectors coming into focus. Better health of the banks will be credit and growth supportive,” they added.

PhillipCapital expected Nifty to be in the range of 12,200-12,700 in March 2020. “We now see upside risk to our toprange, but retain the target for now due to earnings and global uncertainty; political certainty may warrant a PE upgrade.” The brokerage remained ‘overweight’ on financials, infrastructure, consumption (discretionary), chemicals; ‘equal-weight’ on capital goods, IT services, automobiles; ‘under-weight’ on generic pharma. Here are the top large-cap stocks recommended by PhillipCapital:

Axis Bank:

The stock rose about 30 percent this year and 50 percent in last one year.

ICICI Bank: The bank's share price advanced 20 percent in 2019 and gained 47 percent in last one year.

State Bank of India: SBI shares rose 21 percent this year and added 35 percent in last one year.

Hindustan Unilever: HUL shares fell 3 percent in 2019 but rose 12 percent in last one year.

Marico: The stock fell 2 percent so far this year but gained 14 percent in last one year.

Asian Paints: The company's stock price was down marginally at 0.2 percent in 2019 but was up 6 percent in last one year.

Maruti Suzuki India Ltd: MSIL shares were down 5 percent so far this year and fell 17 percent in last one year.

Hero MotoCorp: Th auto maker's shares were down 9 percent in 2019 and 21 percent in last one year.

Larsen and Toubro: L7T shares were up 11 percent this year and 12 percent in the last one year.

Ultratech Cement: The company's shares rose 21.3 percent so far this year and 31 percent in last one year.

Container Corp: CONCOR shares fell 4.8 percent in 2019 and 5.07 percent in last one year.

Divi's Laboratories: The company's shares were down 9.7 percent so far this year but rose 7 percent in last one year.

Biocon: Shares fell 12 percent in 2019 and 16.5 percent in last one year.

Tata Consultancy Services: TCS shares were up 8.5 perecnt this year and 14.6 percent in last one year.