Well, the S&P BSE Sensex went till the 30,000 mark and we can now easily drop to 24,000 - 25,000 levels. A lot will depend on monetary policy. Basically, I think the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor, Raghuram Rajan, would like to see a strong Indian rupee. But he may be under a lot of pressure to lower rates. If he does lower rates, the rupee could begin to weaken more. While the stock market may go up, the rupee may continue to weaken - and in dollar terms, foreign investors are not going to make much money.
Indian stocks - Index vs Individual stock picks
I have maintained the view that if one invests in India over the next 10 years, one will make more money than in the US. But obviously you will have to live with volatility. In the last few years, we had a lot of index-related investing. In other words, people just bought the index through the exchange traded funds (ETFs) or index funds. I think that going forward, say in the next 5-10 years, stock selection will become increasingly important.
