Ajay Srivastava And Mihir Vora On How Indian Investors Should Assess U.S. Election Results

With the U.S. presidential race hanging in the balance, investors across the globe are bracing for uncertainty and assessing what a change in political power could mean for the markets.

Indian markets, too, spent the day swinging from losses to gains as traders tried to pull cues from whatever results had been declared till the closing bell. But will the U.S. choice of president impact Indian markets in any way?

For Ajay Srivastava, a Biden win may not bode well for stock-pickers. “The agenda of the Democrat party does not gel with a strong equity rally,” the managing director at Dimensions Corporate Finance Services Pvt. Ltd. told BloombergQuint.

“But it will also be a great opportunity to offload stocks that they’re carrying. Everybody, including Indians, are overweight on the U.S. stocks. So if Mr. Biden wins, the time is to offload your stocks and wait out in the market,” he said.

Everything will depend on the fate of a second stimulus package in the U.S., he said. “The market is banking on the fact that whoever wins brings a $3-billion stimulus along. If that doesn’t come, you’ll feel the implications.”

Max Life Insurance Company’s Mihir Vora, however, has a more neutral view of the U.S. elections results.

“As far as India is concerned, for the shorter term it should not matter a lot,” the chief investment officer at the insurer told BloombergQuint. Irrespective of whether its Biden or Trump, Vora said major central banks have already made their mind that further stimulus is needed to tackle the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. And that means the inflows into “risk-assets” seen over the last six months should continue due to loose monetary and fiscal conditions, he said.