'Market is fairly valued and aligns with earnings growth'

At WhiteOak, we don't focus on predicting market corrections or potential crashes. Clients entrust us to manage their equity allocations, and we construct portfolios to beat benchmarks. Hence, we assume that overall markets are fairly valued, and we have to identify pockets of relative value based on our bottom-up stock picking and OpCo-FinCo valuation framework. If one looks at large caps, markets have not gone up as much as they made out to be; from the bottom of Covid, it seems like the market has gone up a lot, but the bottom of Covid priced in specific 'end of world' scenarios that didn't play out. If one sees pre- or post-Covid market levels, the index is up 17-18 per cent CAGR, which aligns with earnings growth. Mid and small caps seem pricey, but again, in small caps, the universe is very large, and there is a consistent flow of ideas.