Managing portfolio: Stay with winners or make bets laggards in 2024

The start of a new year is also a good time to make bets on stocks that have been laggards and could potentially see a turnaround in their fortunes next year

A healthy equity portfolio needs churn or rebalancing at a periodic interval. The beginning of a calendar year is a good time for investors to take a hard look at their portfolio and book profits in stocks that rallied too high and too fast, and thus became pricey.

Similarly, the start of a new year is also a good time to make bets on stocks that have been laggards and could potentially see a turnaround in their fortunes over the next year. This could be either because their equity valuation is now relatively low or their business cycle may see an upturn after a 

year of downturn.

This happened to power sector stocks, which were rally leaders in 2023 after years of poor showing on the bourses. At the other end of the spectrum, Adani group companies were the biggest losers in the current calendar year due to the publication of the scathing Hindenburg Research report on group finances. Other laggards were companies from the consumer goods space and agrochemical producers.

Here are the 15 stocks, including six Adani group stocks, that saw more than average movement in their share price in 2023, raising the possibility of a trend reversal in 2024. The rally leaders could become laggards as their valuation rises and the stocks become overbought, while laggards could turn into winners in the 2024 calendar year.