Market giving bullish signals, says Rudra Murthy; shares top picks from defence, IT, banking sectors

Rudra Murthy BV, MD at Vachana Investments, on Wednesday said the March 2025 quarter (Q4 FY25) earnings were far better than the previous two quarters, which indicates that the market is "super bullish". The market expert suggested a 'buy-on-dip' approach at current levels. "We have already seen a good move in HDFC Bank Ltd, Kotak Mahindra Bank and ICICI Bank Ltd. I still continue to be very bullish on the private bank sector," he told Business Today.

From the defence pack, he preferred Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) and Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL). "Investors should have these two counters in their portfolio. You have to be correct in terms of stock picking and understand the themes which will come next. I'm very bullish on defence as a theme," Murthy stated.

He liked Tech Mahindra Ltd and Coforge Ltd from the information technology (IT) space. "IT still has a lot of valuation comfort. TechM and Coforge will be wonderful opportunities to buy into," the market specialist said.

Murthy underscored that the real mid- and small-cap rally is just getting started and it started yesterday. "This is the time to put fresh money into good quality mid- and small-cap stocks. Don't buy simply because some stock has fallen 50-70 per cent from its peak," he mentioned.

Meanwhile, Indian equity benchmarks were trading higher today, led by gains across a majority of sectoral indices. Broader indices (mid- and small-cap shares) were also positive.

17 out of the 18 sector gauges -- compiled by the NSE -- were trading in the green. Sub-indexes Nifty Metal and Nifty IT were outperforming the NSE platform by rising as much as 2.32 per cent and 1.13 per cent.

The overall market breadth was strong as 2,758 shares were advancing while 933 were declining on BSE. 177 stocks stayed unchanged.