Stock picks 2026: Eternal, SBI, HCL Tech, Airtel, Biocon among top bets by Motilal Oswal
Motilal Oswal Wealth Management has shared its top picks for the new year 2026 as Indian equity markets have turned volatile, with Nifty ending 2025 with mild gains.
- Dec 30, 2025,
- Updated Dec 30, 2025 10:53 AM IST
Domestic investment major Motilal Oswal Wealth Management has shared its top picks for the new year 2026 as Indian equity markets have turned volatile, with Nifty ending 2025 with mild gains. Broader markets displayed mixed trends, with midcaps showing relative resilience, while small-caps witnessed sharper bouts of volatility.
Motilal Oswal expects 2026 to be a year of recovery and steady growth. Improvement in corporate earnings, supportive domestic policies and a revival in private sector investments are likely to drive market performance through the year. Any resolution of the tariff stalemate with the US could act as an important external catalyst for markets.
It believes that India’s long-term structural growth story remains intact as domestic factors like Union Budget, government spending, RBI policy, FII trends and corporate earnings growth coupled with global factors like US-India Trade Agreement, US interest rates, geopolitical issues will guide the sentiments for 2026.
"From a valuation standpoint, the Nifty’s 1 year forward P/E stands at 21.5x, around 4% above its long-period average (LPA) of 20.8 times. In comparison, broader market valuations remain elevated. This suggests that large-cap valuations are relatively reasonable after recent consolidation, while midcap and small-cap stocks warrant a more selective approach," it said.
Motilal Oswal is positive on themes like financial services, consumption, manufacturing and digital & healthcare considering strong asset quality, rising retail participation, demand recovery aided by GST cuts, easing inflation, structural shifts, rising infra spending, PLI schemes, robust order books, strategic digital adoption and improving domestic health infra.
It has picked blue-chip stocks like Bharti Airtel Ltd, State Bank of India (SBI), HCL Technologies Ltd and Eternal Ltd, while from the midcap and smallcap basket it has picked TVS Motor Company, Max Financial Services Ltd, Biocon Ltd, J K Cement, Poonawalla Fincorp and Privi Speciality Chemicals with up to 46 per cent in the coming year. Here's what it said on these stocks:
Bharti Airtel | Target Price: Rs 2,365 | Upside Potential: 14%
Bharti continues to deliver strong execution across mobility and digital infrastructure, supported by premiumization, ARPU expansion, broadband growth and Nxtra’s data centre scale-up, enhancing long-term cash flow visibility. Management’s focus on moderated capex and operating efficiency underpins healthy free cash flow generation and balance sheet strength, even as investments continue in network and digital platforms. We have a positive view, backed by consistent operational outperformance and multi-year earnings visibility from 5G rollout, broadband expansion and digital infrastructure, with consolidated revenue/EBITDA CAGR of 15 per cent/18 per cent over FY25–28E.
State Bank of India | Target Price: Rs 1,100 | Upside Potential: 14%
SBI continues to exhibit resilience and market leadership, backed by its diversified customer franchise, strong balance sheet and improving asset quality, with GNPA/NNPA at low levels and healthy momentum across retail, SME and corporate lending. Credit growth remains robust at 13 per cent YoY, with management guiding for 12–14 per cent loan growth and NIMs above 3 per cent, supported by structural efficiency initiatives such as Project Saral and a strong corporate pipeline of Rs 7 lakh crore. With improving return ratios and confidence in the durability of core earnings, we expect FY27E RoA/RoE of 1.1 per cent/15.5 per cent, underpinned by resilient operations and sustained long-term growth prospects.
HCL Technologies | Target Price: Rs 2,150 | Upside Potential: 32%
HCL Tech’s growth continues to be driven by IT services and ER&D, with early traction in AI-led solutions; platforms such as AI Force and AI Factory are enhancing productivity and enabling non-linear growth. We expect HCL Tech's to deliver a CAGR of 5.3 per cent/7.2 per cent in USD revenue/INR PAT over FY25-27, supported by large-deal ramp ups, AI adoption, and healthy client mining. HCL Tech remains the fastest-growing large-cap IT services firm with strong FCF generation and an all-weather portfolio.
Eternal | Target Price: Rs 410 | Upside Potential: 46%
Eternal is witnessing strong revenue momentum as it shifts to an inventory-led model, driving sharp growth in net revenues and improving gross margins through full-value recognition and higher inventory ownership. Quick commerce (Blinkit) continues to scale rapidly, supported by store expansion and operational execution, while franchise and e-commerce segments are steadily increasing their share of overall revenues, enhancing diversification. Margin profile is gradually improving, with contribution and EBITDA margins inching up, reflecting early operating leverage despite continued investments in growth and marketing.
TVS Motor Company | Target Price: Rs 4,159 | Upside Potential: 17%
TVS Motor continues to outperform the industry, with strong festive-season retail growth, sustained demand momentum aided by GST rate cuts, and sharp improvement in domestic market share across 2W and EV segments. Export performance remains robust with broad-based growth across Africa and LATAM, while operating leverage and mix improvements are supporting gradual margin expansion. A healthy product launch pipeline underpins upgraded FY27 estimates, with revenue/EBITDA/PAT expected to grow at a CAGR of 21 per cent/25 per cent/29 per centover FY25–28E, supporting sustained return ratios.
Max Financial Services | Target Price: Rs 2,100 | Upside Potential: 28%
Max Financial maintains a better-than-industry APE growth trajectory. VNB margin witnessed a strong expansion owing to strong growth and a rise in the contribution of protection, non-par, and annuity businesses. The proprietary channel continues to drive growth across offline and online channels, while the bancassurance channel posted strong growth in non-Axis partnerships. The persistence trends improved across long-term cohorts. We expect VNB margins to improve to 25 per cent/26 per cent/26.5 per cent over FY26–FY28, driven by stronger persistence across long term cohorts, reinforcing the quality of growth.
Biocon | Target Price: Rs 460 | Upside Potential: 18%
Biocon acquired biosimilar business of Viatris to emerge as a leading global integrated company in the biologics segment. The commercial footprint of Viatris complemented Biocon product development/manufacturing capabilities. Biocon remains in good stead for a broad-based scale-up across biologics, generics and CDMO, driving strong earnings revival over FY26-28. Business prospects remain encouraging on the back of a) product launches (namely insulin aspart) in biologics segment and subsequent market share gain, b) scale-up of generics business, and c) growth/operating leverage in Syngene business.
JK Cement | Target Price: Rs 7,000 | Upside Potential: 22%
JK Cement continues to exhibit operational resilience despite near-term pricing pressures, supported by strong volume traction in central and south markets, effective cost control, and gradual premiumisation. Capacity additions, including the Jaisalmer integrated project and the Buxar grinding unit, are progressing as planned, providing visibility on sustained volume growth, efficiency gains and rising green energy adoption towards 75 per cent by FY30. We expect robust earnings compounding over FY25–28E, underpinned by growth visibility, timely capacity expansion and margin improvement potential, which supports our positive investment view.
Poonawalla Fincorp | Target Price: Rs 600 | Upside Potential: 26%
Under new leadership, Poonawalla Fincorp aims to deliver its stated ambition of digitally enabled, multi-product retail platform with disciplined underwriting and strong risk management. New engines like Prime PL, gold loans, CV, consumer durables, and education loans are scaling rapidly, supporting 50 per cent AUM CAGR over FY25–28E. Deep investments in AI/ML across underwriting, collections, and governance are driving structural improvements. This digital transformation is expected to yield significant cost efficiencies with cost-to-income projected to fall from 51 per cent (FY25) to 42 per cent by FY28E, supporting ROA expansion toward the 3–3.5 per cent target.
Privi Speciality Chemicals | Target Price: Rs 3,960 | Upside Potential: 28%
Privi Speciality Chemicals, India’s largest aroma chemical exporter, is set to benefit from the global aroma chemicals market growing to $9.2 billion by 2030. Planned capacity expansion from 48k MT to 66k MT by Mar’28 supports sustained growth. To strengthen its green chemistry portfolio, PRIVI plans to merge with Privi Fine Sciences, adding high-margin bio-based products like furfural and cyclopentanone. With capacity planned at 18k MT by FY27 and 36k MT by FY29, Privi enhances its sustainable innovation edge. We expect 27 per cent/34 per cent revenue/EBITDA CAGR over FY25–28, driven by core capacity expansion, new high-demand speciality products, and stronger partnerships with global customers such as Givaudan.
Domestic investment major Motilal Oswal Wealth Management has shared its top picks for the new year 2026 as Indian equity markets have turned volatile, with Nifty ending 2025 with mild gains. Broader markets displayed mixed trends, with midcaps showing relative resilience, while small-caps witnessed sharper bouts of volatility.
Motilal Oswal expects 2026 to be a year of recovery and steady growth. Improvement in corporate earnings, supportive domestic policies and a revival in private sector investments are likely to drive market performance through the year. Any resolution of the tariff stalemate with the US could act as an important external catalyst for markets.
It believes that India’s long-term structural growth story remains intact as domestic factors like Union Budget, government spending, RBI policy, FII trends and corporate earnings growth coupled with global factors like US-India Trade Agreement, US interest rates, geopolitical issues will guide the sentiments for 2026.
"From a valuation standpoint, the Nifty’s 1 year forward P/E stands at 21.5x, around 4% above its long-period average (LPA) of 20.8 times. In comparison, broader market valuations remain elevated. This suggests that large-cap valuations are relatively reasonable after recent consolidation, while midcap and small-cap stocks warrant a more selective approach," it said.
Motilal Oswal is positive on themes like financial services, consumption, manufacturing and digital & healthcare considering strong asset quality, rising retail participation, demand recovery aided by GST cuts, easing inflation, structural shifts, rising infra spending, PLI schemes, robust order books, strategic digital adoption and improving domestic health infra.
It has picked blue-chip stocks like Bharti Airtel Ltd, State Bank of India (SBI), HCL Technologies Ltd and Eternal Ltd, while from the midcap and smallcap basket it has picked TVS Motor Company, Max Financial Services Ltd, Biocon Ltd, J K Cement, Poonawalla Fincorp and Privi Speciality Chemicals with up to 46 per cent in the coming year. Here's what it said on these stocks:
Bharti Airtel | Target Price: Rs 2,365 | Upside Potential: 14%
Bharti continues to deliver strong execution across mobility and digital infrastructure, supported by premiumization, ARPU expansion, broadband growth and Nxtra’s data centre scale-up, enhancing long-term cash flow visibility. Management’s focus on moderated capex and operating efficiency underpins healthy free cash flow generation and balance sheet strength, even as investments continue in network and digital platforms. We have a positive view, backed by consistent operational outperformance and multi-year earnings visibility from 5G rollout, broadband expansion and digital infrastructure, with consolidated revenue/EBITDA CAGR of 15 per cent/18 per cent over FY25–28E.
State Bank of India | Target Price: Rs 1,100 | Upside Potential: 14%
SBI continues to exhibit resilience and market leadership, backed by its diversified customer franchise, strong balance sheet and improving asset quality, with GNPA/NNPA at low levels and healthy momentum across retail, SME and corporate lending. Credit growth remains robust at 13 per cent YoY, with management guiding for 12–14 per cent loan growth and NIMs above 3 per cent, supported by structural efficiency initiatives such as Project Saral and a strong corporate pipeline of Rs 7 lakh crore. With improving return ratios and confidence in the durability of core earnings, we expect FY27E RoA/RoE of 1.1 per cent/15.5 per cent, underpinned by resilient operations and sustained long-term growth prospects.
HCL Technologies | Target Price: Rs 2,150 | Upside Potential: 32%
HCL Tech’s growth continues to be driven by IT services and ER&D, with early traction in AI-led solutions; platforms such as AI Force and AI Factory are enhancing productivity and enabling non-linear growth. We expect HCL Tech's to deliver a CAGR of 5.3 per cent/7.2 per cent in USD revenue/INR PAT over FY25-27, supported by large-deal ramp ups, AI adoption, and healthy client mining. HCL Tech remains the fastest-growing large-cap IT services firm with strong FCF generation and an all-weather portfolio.
Eternal | Target Price: Rs 410 | Upside Potential: 46%
Eternal is witnessing strong revenue momentum as it shifts to an inventory-led model, driving sharp growth in net revenues and improving gross margins through full-value recognition and higher inventory ownership. Quick commerce (Blinkit) continues to scale rapidly, supported by store expansion and operational execution, while franchise and e-commerce segments are steadily increasing their share of overall revenues, enhancing diversification. Margin profile is gradually improving, with contribution and EBITDA margins inching up, reflecting early operating leverage despite continued investments in growth and marketing.
TVS Motor Company | Target Price: Rs 4,159 | Upside Potential: 17%
TVS Motor continues to outperform the industry, with strong festive-season retail growth, sustained demand momentum aided by GST rate cuts, and sharp improvement in domestic market share across 2W and EV segments. Export performance remains robust with broad-based growth across Africa and LATAM, while operating leverage and mix improvements are supporting gradual margin expansion. A healthy product launch pipeline underpins upgraded FY27 estimates, with revenue/EBITDA/PAT expected to grow at a CAGR of 21 per cent/25 per cent/29 per centover FY25–28E, supporting sustained return ratios.
Max Financial Services | Target Price: Rs 2,100 | Upside Potential: 28%
Max Financial maintains a better-than-industry APE growth trajectory. VNB margin witnessed a strong expansion owing to strong growth and a rise in the contribution of protection, non-par, and annuity businesses. The proprietary channel continues to drive growth across offline and online channels, while the bancassurance channel posted strong growth in non-Axis partnerships. The persistence trends improved across long-term cohorts. We expect VNB margins to improve to 25 per cent/26 per cent/26.5 per cent over FY26–FY28, driven by stronger persistence across long term cohorts, reinforcing the quality of growth.
Biocon | Target Price: Rs 460 | Upside Potential: 18%
Biocon acquired biosimilar business of Viatris to emerge as a leading global integrated company in the biologics segment. The commercial footprint of Viatris complemented Biocon product development/manufacturing capabilities. Biocon remains in good stead for a broad-based scale-up across biologics, generics and CDMO, driving strong earnings revival over FY26-28. Business prospects remain encouraging on the back of a) product launches (namely insulin aspart) in biologics segment and subsequent market share gain, b) scale-up of generics business, and c) growth/operating leverage in Syngene business.
JK Cement | Target Price: Rs 7,000 | Upside Potential: 22%
JK Cement continues to exhibit operational resilience despite near-term pricing pressures, supported by strong volume traction in central and south markets, effective cost control, and gradual premiumisation. Capacity additions, including the Jaisalmer integrated project and the Buxar grinding unit, are progressing as planned, providing visibility on sustained volume growth, efficiency gains and rising green energy adoption towards 75 per cent by FY30. We expect robust earnings compounding over FY25–28E, underpinned by growth visibility, timely capacity expansion and margin improvement potential, which supports our positive investment view.
Poonawalla Fincorp | Target Price: Rs 600 | Upside Potential: 26%
Under new leadership, Poonawalla Fincorp aims to deliver its stated ambition of digitally enabled, multi-product retail platform with disciplined underwriting and strong risk management. New engines like Prime PL, gold loans, CV, consumer durables, and education loans are scaling rapidly, supporting 50 per cent AUM CAGR over FY25–28E. Deep investments in AI/ML across underwriting, collections, and governance are driving structural improvements. This digital transformation is expected to yield significant cost efficiencies with cost-to-income projected to fall from 51 per cent (FY25) to 42 per cent by FY28E, supporting ROA expansion toward the 3–3.5 per cent target.
Privi Speciality Chemicals | Target Price: Rs 3,960 | Upside Potential: 28%
Privi Speciality Chemicals, India’s largest aroma chemical exporter, is set to benefit from the global aroma chemicals market growing to $9.2 billion by 2030. Planned capacity expansion from 48k MT to 66k MT by Mar’28 supports sustained growth. To strengthen its green chemistry portfolio, PRIVI plans to merge with Privi Fine Sciences, adding high-margin bio-based products like furfural and cyclopentanone. With capacity planned at 18k MT by FY27 and 36k MT by FY29, Privi enhances its sustainable innovation edge. We expect 27 per cent/34 per cent revenue/EBITDA CAGR over FY25–28, driven by core capacity expansion, new high-demand speciality products, and stronger partnerships with global customers such as Givaudan.