Jhunjhunwala bullish on India if oil rates, rains support

2010 was the year of equities. Across the world, equity markets delivered strong returns despite the sovereign debt crisis in the eurozone, which caused huge periods of volatility in the middle of the year. However, the Indian markets saw a surfeit of liquidity thanks to quantitative easing measures taken by the government.

But at the start of 2011, political scams and corporate governance issues combined to create a huge dent in the Indian stock market. Even reasonable Q3 earnings failed to excite the market. But just when the market seemed to have come to terms with these issues, geopolitical tensions in the Middle East surfaced in February, which have sent crude prices soaring above USD 100 per barrel and the Sensex to 18,000 levels. However, ace investor and partner of RARE Enterprises Rakesh Jhunjhunwala feels that India is not in a cyclical, but secular bull market, which started in 2003. Although he is extremely bullish on India, he hastened to add that India will have to counter rising crude prices and hope for a good monsoon. "There are two crystal balls you have to see. One is the monsoon and the other is the oil price. If both go in India