New Delhi, Feb. 10 -- Pankaj Pandey, the head of research at ICICI Securities, is positive about the Indian stock market, expecting a healthy double-digit return over the next 12 months and a healthy growth in Nifty earnings over FY26-28. "India offers a perfect trilogy of lower inflation, lower bond yields and improving growth, supporting a positive equity outlook going forward," he says in an interview with Mint. He also finds odds in favour of small-caps delivering healthy double-digit returns in the current calendar year. The only risk for the market, in his view, is geopolitical tensions.

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No, there is no change to our Nifty target. We expect Nifty earnings to grow 15% CAGR over FY26-28E.

Our calendar year 2026 (CY...