Budget 2026: Volatile markets offer buying opportunity; Q3 earnings likely strong, says JM Financial AMC's Satish Ramanathan

Satish Ramanathan, CIO-Equity at JM Financial AMC, believes Indian equity markets are undergoing a correction after valuations ran a little ahead of fundamentals, creating an opportunity for long-term investors amid heightened volatility.

"Typically, what happens in such a market environment is that you have lower volumes and lower prices with higher volatility. And, actually this is the best time to start building back the portfolio or you know adding to the portfolio. Unfortunately, people get unnerved by this volatility and do not put money at this point in time. But, the maximum money is actually made when you buy the volatile markets gradually, not in a hurry but gradually," the market expert told Business Today.

Sharing his outlook ahead of the Union Budget and the near-term market trajectory for 2026, Ramanathan said he expects corporate performance to remain resilient. "We believe that the third quarter earnings will be reasonably good," he stated, adding that policy focus needs to shift more decisively towards supporting the domestic economy.

According to him, the government may need to consider measures that improve investment sentiment. "It may have to bring in some tax sops to increase investment. It may also have to promote investment sentiment by probably reducing some taxes, maybe capital gains, etc. These are the things that the government ought to do, whether it does it or not is completely different," he noted.

Ramanathan expects volatility to persist, with headline indices likely to remain range-bound in the near term. He stressed that fiscal constraints could limit capital expenditure (capex) theme.

On the global front, he cautioned against over-reliance on exports. "The export market is going to be volatile given the current nature of the global economy. Therefore, we should not have too much dependence on exports as a growth engine," he said, underscoring the need for growth to be domestically driven.