Shankar Sharma and Samir Arora face off: Who will win?

Shankar Sharma and Samir Arora face off: Who will win?

Renowned markets investors Shankar Sharma, founder of GQuant Investech, and Samir Arora, founder of Helios Capital, faced off in a fiery debate at the Moneycontrol Global Wealth Summit 2025. While Sharma is known as an eternal bear, Arora is known for his bullish views on the equity landscape.

An Indian bull can run only for five years, while American bulls can run for 10 years, said Shankar Sharma. "The bull run over the past five years was a fast one. So that bull is a tired bull. And a tired bull will fall at the slightest of hits of a trouble. While a young bull will jump over the trouble," joked Sharma.

He added, however, if anything happens to a tired bull, it tends to buckle. "So my take was: I have been bullish for 4.5 years but I always believe markets are cyclical, the data proves it. Therefore, I turned."

Samir Arora was quick to retort. "Mr. Shankar Sharma's convenient choosing is of last 5 years. However, over the past 7 years, 9 years, 11 years, 13 years, 15 years, 20 years, and 25 years, they all look the same."

Arora shared his definition on a 'bull run'. "One: I should do better than what other asset classes are doing, which means debt primarily. Two: Broadly, we should do better than what other countries are doing. From that angle, this is still a bull run."

This didn't please Sharma. According to him, the real bear market is only in India. The downturn India is seeing is not the result of a globalised bear market. "China is doing well. Obviously Europe is doing phenomenally well. Toh India mein hi hai (The bear market is only in India)", he said.

Outlook for 2025

Samir Arora: In the next one or two months the market will bottom out and maybe go up 5-7 percent or 10 percent.

Shankar Sharma: The Nifty 50 isn't going to see highs this year. You will see next to zero returns from September 2024 highs for the next four-five years.

The Moneycontrol Global Wealth Summit 2025 is a flagship, premier platform that brings together leading Indian and global investors, titans of Indian business, policy-makers and other important mover and shakers in the financial market ecosystem to decode the puzzle of wealth creation in India.

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