Everyone believes that the first half of 2023 will be difficult given that the Federal Reserve is increasing interest rates and trying to engineer a growth slowdown in the U.S. to bring down inflation. S Naren, ED & CIO, ICICI Prudential Mutual Fund, tends to agree with the consensus at this to point. He believes that the global equity markets will remain volatile in H1 2023. However, he adds that things will improve in the second half. He also recommends the best strategy to invest in 2023.
As far as his favourable sectors to invest in 2023 are concerned, he likes financials. Healthcare and IT which had a bad year in 2022, as per Naren are the sectors where one should invest gradually in 2023. " The long term outlook for these sectors look good," says S Naren. Also, he prefer large caps and flexi caps over mid caps, small caps at this point of time. Naren suggest investors to remain risk averse in the coming year. "We are headed for a period of volatility and moderate returns in 2023 but investing in such periods is far more interesting."