Fund houses typically don’t take part in Muhurat trading, explains Anup Maheshwari, Executive Vice-President and Head - Equities, DSPBR Mutual Fund. “The Muhurat trading is more of a sentiment and it doesn’t give any sense on fundamentals. When you are managing a large fund, you don’t look at day-to-day movements. Our positions are based on analysing trends in earnings over several periods. So we just stay in our positions and don’ t trade in and out,” he elaborates.

But that doesn’t mean fund managers don’t keep a watch on the festival season trends.“ In the run-up to the festival season, there is a lot of anticipation built into the valuations of consumer companies as people expect good numbers. Hence, we do keep track as this is a very important season for consumption,” he adds.

According to him, while the festival season hasn’t particularly been strong in recent years, 2016 seems to be better than 2015 in some pockets. “ From whatever we hear, it has been quite strong for consumer durables. All the e-commerce sales have also attracted attention. But it is not the case for all consumer segments. We have not seen the same level of strength in two-wheelers, for instance, where there was a lot of inventory build-up in anticipation of the festival,” he says.

While the Pay Commission bonanza is reflecting in the demand to an extent right now, Anup Maheshwari feels that consumption could pick up further when lower interest rates are fully transmitted.

He also places plenty of hope on the rural consumer, although rural demand hasn’t really picked up for this year’s Dusshera and Diwali. “ Rural cash flows will start coming only from November and will go through right until March, post the winter crop. This has been a very good monsoon season. So I think demand on the rural side will be very robust six months from now,” he concludes.

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