< The 2014 All-India Research Team
Total Appearances: 4
Analyst Debut: 2011Every year since 2012, Manoj Menon has been the only analyst to earn first place in more than one sector on the All-India Research Team. The Deutsche Bank researcher garners his third straight No. 1 on this roster and his fourth in Consumer/Staples, in large part because he is “not colored by near-term noise and has the ability to identify structural changes early in the cycle,” one backer attests. One trend that the 39-year-old researcher has been monitoring is the changing pace of urban recovery. Signs of a turnaround are now “prominent,” he notes, while they were merely nascent as recently as June. Moreover, consumer confidence in the country is at his highest level in three years, he adds. As a result, Menon remains positive on the prospects for India’s consumer discretionary shares, which outperformed the nation’s broad market by 9.5 percentage points over the 12 months through late October, advancing by 33.8 percent. He points out that sales of discretionary goods and services at the higher end — such as consumer durables and jewelry — are witnessing a rebound before those at the lower, like quick-service and fast-casual restaurants and discretionary staples. “This is quite counterintuitive,” he says, “and one potential explanation could be the case of pent-up demand in the ‘high ticket’ discretionary items, for which growth has been relatively subdued in the last two years.” Therefore, Menon’s preferred names include Mumbai’s Asian Paints, which is India’s largest manufacturer of decorative and industrial paints; and Titan Co., a Bangalore-based maker and vendor of jewelry and watches.
