These 50 BSE 500 stocks have delivered more than 100% return this year; do you own any?

Equity investors have managed to make quick money amid the ongoing rally on Dalal Street. Data shows that at least 50 BSE 500 firms have more than doubled investors’ wealth in the ongoing calendar year. With a rally of 337%, shares of Balaji Amines have climbed to Rs 4044.80 on September 3, 2021 against Rs 925.45 on December 31 last year. On the other hand, the benchmark BSE Sensex has advanced nearly 22% to a record high of 58,129.

Market watchers believe that the overall strong positive sentiments can be attributed to hopes pinned to sustained improvement in aggregate public health, pick up in retail mobility, consumption-led recovery in trade and the promising corporate earnings story. While such a bull rally often surprises on the upside, there are tail risks that the market is cognizant about.

Nirav Karkera, head of research, Fisdom said, “For a large set of stocks, the valuations are pretty rich and would require earnings to play catch-up rather aggressively. The probability of markets over-pricing in the earnings story would turn out to be a dampener if relatively tepid demand or margin pressures play spoilsport. One also needs to consider cues from global counterparts and understand that we are not completely out of the pandemic and if we get out of it faster, we would face liquidity rollback-pressures on the other side of it. However, most of this can be viewed as intermittent volatility as the broader economic recovery and market resurrection story remains intact from a medium to longer-term perspective.”

Other top stocks

Happiest Minds Technologies emerged as the second-best performer in the BSE500 index. It has rallied 336% to Rs 1,503.45 on a year-to-date basis. It was followed by Adani Transmission (up 299%), Adani Total Gas (up 291%), JSW Energy (up 274%), Adani Enterprises (up 226%), Gujarat Fluorochemicals (up 195%) and Max Healthcare Institute (up 172%).

Alkyl Amines, Deepak Fertilisers, HFCL, Tata Elxi, Linde India, eClerx Services, Lux Industries, Deepak Nitrite, IIFL Finance, HEG, Trident, Indian Energy Exchange, KPIT Technologies, JK Paper, Mindtree, Persistent Systems, DCM Shriram, Tata Steel, Graphite India, Sonata Software, Adani Power and Plycab India also gained between 100%- 175% in 2021 so far.

Stocks to buy now

For stock-specific investors, BP Wealth suggested Bharti Airtel with a target price of Rs 750. It advised investors to keep a strict stop loss at Rs 608. The brokerage also recommended players like Eicher Motors (Target price: Rs 3,130), HDFC AMC (Rs 3,550), Kotak Mahindra Bank (Rs 2020), Larsen & Toubro (Rs 1,900), ONGC (Rs 141) and Sun Pharma (Rs 880).

Commenting on the bull market, VK Vijayakumar, chief investment strategist, Geojit Financial Services said, “Fresh highs are likely driven by the strong uptrend in RIL and renewed buying in banking stocks. The ideal strategy in this bull market is to remain invested with occasional partial profit bookings and moving some profits to fixed income.”