Business
HDFC Bank and Eternal among stocks Samir Arora is adding to his portfolio
HDFC Bank and Eternal among stocks Samir Arora is adding to his portfolio
About this update from Eternal Limited
On day one of the ceasefire between the US and Iran, a Singapore-based fund manager revealed that he shuffled stocks but never took money out of the market during the war that began on February 28. In a conversation with CNBC-TV18, Samir Arora, Founder of Helios Capital, shares his thoughts on stocks that are attractive. He also explained whyHDFC Bank and Eternal feature in that list. You can watch the full conversation here or scroll down for edited excerpts from the interview.Q: What have you done in the last 37 days while this conflict was on? And are you getting back risk today?A: Actually, in my long-short fund, I had come in very aggressively in March. My net was something like 74–75, which, after 10–15 days, I reduced to oil and gas, refining, and a few others. And my net is now maybe 67–68—not much different, but it was actually lower.But you know, it’s a long-short fund, and you have to react. In the other funds, I have a long-only fund here, quite big, and then we have the mutual funds there, and all of them would be 99% invested.I can prove it again and again. You can see the data for the last year: for all the guys who come on TV and say, now we are becoming bullish, now our model is turning green, but their returns are plus-or-minus the same, in a period that should have helped the guy sitting on cash.In the end, a few days here and there—like today—if you are sitting on cash, what you will lose is maybe 20 days of returns. And by that time, something else will happen.So, we have realised that broadly being fully invested is okay. You change the stocks as you go. You can’t say I am long-term, I will time the market, but I will not change the stock. Once you buy a stock, you are always married to it—that doesn’t work. If you are willing to change stocks, it’s okay to be fully invested.Q: How have you rebalanced and churned your portfolio?A: As I said, we have changed some energy-related stocks, and we added a few. Maybe we added one new name to defence stocks.And even if the war is ending, defence now—people will realise everybody needs to be more self-dependent. Secondly, in oil and gas and energy, you will have to put more effort into alternatives than before.Other than that, we didn’t change much. We added to a stock, which fell 25% year-to-date. We felt the stories around it were more about egos than any scam in the company.We added to tha...