Indian stock markets have seen one of their most volatile phases in recent years.
After scaling record highs in September 2024, Dalal Street has been hit by one global shock after another. US President Donald Trump’s tariff announcements rattled global markets, the India-Pakistan conflict weighed on investor sentiment, and the West Asia war fuelled fears of supply disruptions and rising crude oil prices.
While the benchmark indices have recovered from some of those setbacks, many analysts continue to believe Indian equities remain richly valued.
It is against this backdrop that ace investor Shankar Sharma has delivered one of the sharpest critiques of the stock market.
“This should not be called a . This should be called a poison market. This is poison and it will kill everyone one day,” Sharma said in a recent podcast with INDmoney. He went a step further, saying India would actually be better off if the stock market were shut for a decade.
“If you close the stock market for 10 years in India, then India will really grow,” he said.
The comments are striking because they come from someone who has spent over four decades investing in equities and built his fortune through the stock market.
Looking back at his investing journey, Sharma said he made his first investment in 1981 or 1982.
“My first investment was in ’81 or ’82. The year stuck in my head, by the time year 2000 comes, I wanted to be very, very rich,” he recalled.
According to Sharma, that ambition became reality.
“In 2000, I made more money than you can even think about,” he said, adding that he had paid around Rs 50 crore in taxes over the years.
Having benefited enormously from the markets himself, Sharma’s criticism is not of investing itself but of what he believes the market has become.
While Sharma did not elaborate extensively on the remark, it appears to reflect concerns that markets have increasingly become driven by speculation rather than fundamentals.
Over the past few years, India has witnessed an unprecedented surge in retail participation. Millions of first-time investors have entered the market through trading apps, derivatives and social media-driven investment ideas.
The rapid growth in options trading has also prompted repeated warnings from market regulator Sebi, which has cautioned that a majority of retail traders lose money in the derivatives segment.
Sharma also challenged one of the most common beliefs around investing.
“People say that in a mutual fund, it becomes 12%. That’s not possible. This is all rubbish,” he said.
While long-term equity investing has historically generated wealth, returns are never guaranteed and depend on factors such as valuations, earnings growth, market cycles and an investor’s time horizon.
Sharma’s remarks come at a time when Dalal Street has faced repeated bouts of volatility.
Markets touched record highs in September before correcting sharply amid concerns over Trump’s tariff measures, which raised fears of a global trade war. Sentiment was further dented by the India-Pakistan military conflict and, more recently, escalating tensions in West Asia that pushed crude oil prices higher and revived inflation concerns.
Although benchmark indices have recovered from many of these shocks, valuation concerns remain.
Several market experts continue to argue that Indian equities are trading at a premium compared with other emerging markets, leaving little room for disappointment if corporate earnings fail to keep pace.
Despite his strong criticism, Sharma’s own investing journey shows the wealth-creation potential of equities.
He also reflected on what it takes to succeed in investing.
“A lot of times money or success will come to you when either you are chasing it very hard or you are not actually chasing it. If you are half-hearted, it doesn’t come,” he said.
His remarks are likely to spark debate because they come from someone who has created significant wealth through the stock market but now believes excessive speculation poses risks to investors.
Whether one agrees with Sharma or not, his comments reopen an important discussion at a time when millions of Indians are entering the equity markets for the first time: are markets still rewarding patient, long-term investing, or are they becoming increasingly driven by speculation and momentum?