* Likes discount retail, basic materials stocks

* Negative on energy stocks, despite commodity price rally

* Underweight on large financials, likes regional banks

* Conviction buy: Koppers Holdings

By Adveith Nair and Deepti Govind

BANGALORE, Oct 29 (Reuters) - Fund managers at Accessor are increasingly positive on the retail sector, given growing investor preference for top-line growth, but are negative on the energy sector, despite a recent rally in commodity prices.

After fighting slumping sales for about a year now, retailers got an early Christmas gift, when in September they posted their first monthly sales increase in more than a year.

"Investors prefer sales-based valuations and the retail sector has very attractive valuations on a sale-to-price basis (rather than earnings-to-price)," Thomas Stevens and Laina Ceddia, co-managers of the Accessor Small to Mid Cap Fund, said.

According to global fund tracking firm Lipper, the Accessor Small to Mid Cap fund has outperformed more than a quarter of its peers over a three-month period, but has lagged half of them year to date.