Hello and Happy Saturday to you all! For those who love cats, Happy Caturday! We have officially set foot into the second half of 2026. Having seen it all (yet again) in the first six months of the year, we can only hope, that the only way forward, is now higher and that the final 180 days of the year will bring us joy, and hopefully, strong returns too!
The market has just been climbing walls all through the year. The STT wall, the war wall, the wall of higher crude oil prices, the wall of higher inflation, the wall of a potentially stronger US Dollar, and then there’s the Nifty, which has just not managed to break down the 24,500 wall on the upside. Yes, the last four weeks have resulted in positive returns, but that 24,500 wall is still intact!
And if that is not enough, there is another wall that awaits the market in the next six months. A wall of up to $70 billion. That is what JPMorgan’s Abhinav Bharti expects in terms of fund raising in the next six months through IPOs, Offer for Sale, block deals and other avenues. Such events usually have been liquidity suckers for the market and do end up keeping a lid on any strong moves on the upside. The bulls would hope that is not the case as mega IPOs are lined up in the upcoming months and stake sales are ongoing as well.
We spoke to you about IT last week, as to how it just cannot catch a break. They still couldn’t during the first three days of the week. Then came Alex Karp, the CEO of Palantir, or for these beaten down IT stocks, Rakhwala, Rakshak, Bodyguard, Indra The Tiger, whichever adjective you may please! His scathing attack on Anthropic, OpenAI and their peers, which you can read more about here, suddenly breathed new life in to the US-based software names and consequently, to our Indian IT players too, who, ahead of their earnings reports, were in desperate need of some relief after the worst first half of a calendar year since 2001!
Across Thursday and Friday, the Nifty IT index surged 6.5%, with HCLTech’s big deal propelling the stock higher by 10% in two sessions. Persistent Systems, Mphasis, Coforge, Infosys, LTM, and even TCS, saw gains between 5.5% to 8% during this rebound trade over the last two days. But as Kirron Kher told Shah Rukh Khan in Main Hoon Na (2004), “Bees Saal ke Zakham, Bees Din Me Nahi Bhare Jaate Ram!” (You cannot heal 20-year old scars in 20 days, Ram!). Even after this recovery, Infosys, TCS and Wipro are still down over 30% for the year, as is HCLTech!
From being the darling of the street in the first half of the year, the power transmission space has suddenly had a change of fortunes. Concerns over pricing, rising Chinese competition and a strong run in the first half of 2026 meant that the all the high flyers – GE Vernova T&D, Hitachi Energy India, Siemens Energy India, Thermax are down over 10% in just the first three days of July. Taher Badshah of Invesco Mutual Fund though, is positive on the power transmission space, with industrials also delivering strong growth along with margin expansion, although he cautioned that the valuations here are quite expensive.
However, the one person who is not very confident about this space, is the biggest voice on CNBC-TV18 this week – S Naren of ICICI Prudential AMC who went on to warn that the electrification theme will deflate if the AI theme deflates globally. Naren also cautioned that he is not in a position currently to make a “thumping call” on equities and believes that returns will be moderate. He finds largecaps “reasonably valued”, Midcaps “generally not cheap”, although one can still find opportunities there. He expects private banks to do well and the upstream oil and gas industry to benefit from government reforms. He does not want to chase Metal names, although he is “reasonably positive” on Steel. Full interview right here.
In today’s episode of “form is temporary, class is permanent”, Sanjeev Prasad of Kotak Institutional Equities spoke about how narrative-driven names don’t find takers after a point, citing the example of railway stocks that are down over 50% from their peaks but are not finding any takers in the market. He also warned that what happened with the railway stocks a few years ago, is something that is happening with industrials currently. Therefore, he removed ABB, Siemens and Cummins India from his model portfolio as he found their valuations to be “too expensive.” He likes CDMO as a domestic manufacturing theme, as their valuations are also reasonable. He also prefers domestic-oriented themes like financials, telecom, tourism and retail.
There are days we struggle to give headlines that would make you, the reader, click on our story. But the one man who is absolutely effortless at this, is US President Donald Trump. In today’s quote of the day, the US President told CNBC in an interview “Presidency is for a bigger purpose than making money!”, referring to him foregoing his $4,00,000 annual salary as the head of state. Besides this, the over 21,000 Trump trades executed during calendar year 2025 are grabbing headlines too! Here’s our own little 20-year transition from watching Bob The Builder as kids, to watching Trump the Trader as adults!
The market has not gone anywhere, but the real market mover has arrived, yet again! *Drumroll* Ladies and Gentlemen, EARNINGS SEASON IS BACK! Starting next Thursday, TCS will cut the ribbon for the Nifty 50 companies and IT results will be more keenly watched than ever this time around. Many major companies and most of the banks have already come out with their provisional business updates for the quarter and the next week promises to be the start of what will keep us glued to our laptops and TV screens for the next 45 days!
It has finally begun to rain in Mumbai and we are feverishly praying that this sustains! As does this four week gaining streak on the Nifty. The stage is set, the hype has been generated, tickets have been sold, and the audience is ready. Over to India Inc. for the next month and a half! Thank you for tuning in once again. Do like, share and subscribe and follow us on CNBC-TV18’s social media handles! Until next Saturday, Phir Milenge Chalte Chalte!
