where's the buying opportunity

On 29 Jan 2015, Nifty closed at 8952.35. Although it had implied values of higher return on equity and a reasonable growth rate, I concluded that based on the fundamentals, it was quoting high. On 3 March 2015, it was at 8996.25. Since then, Nifty has been on a downward trend, and this has given the talking heads ample opportunity to talk. As of 25 Feb 2016, it closed at 6970.60. 

Some have been saying that this is a buying opportunity since India has all the requirements of a high-growth economy. Some have been advising to wait because there will be buying opportunities further ahead. Some others are recommending to buy in small proportions and increase as we see better opportunities. Probably, most of them are looking at Nifty and talking about individual stocks. If so, what they are missing is that selective stock picking can be done at any time of the market; you only have to figure out the gap between price and value. Buying the index itself at one go is usually a bad idea; index investing requires periodic investments over a long period of time; call it dollar-cost averaging or systematic investment plan. 

Coming to the current market, the stocks that appear to be cheap are actually commodities, cyclicals, realties, infrastructure and banks. I wouldn't want to buy any of them now, except may be banks. Yet, that is a tough game. It is far easy to fool ourselves with the delusion of apparent value. Those stocks that have better fundamentals, aren't available at prices that I want. So for me, there is no selective buying as of now. I am watching though. 

What about the market itself? If find that the market fundamentals are not pretty at all. Let's start from Jan 2015. Both return on equity and growth rate have been steadily deteriorating. Although, this month has been better in terms of index value, it is not an index buying month either. For direct lump sum investment in the index, I would like to see higher growth rate in earnings and efficiency in that growth rate, i.e. higher return on equity, in the coming months. It is far better to stick to periodic investments in the index than attempting something stupid. 

In investing, I like to look at the downside first, and then the upside. The market is not cheap at the moment.