Shankar Sharma vs Samir Arora: Two stock market titans exchange blows in bull vs bear debate. Who’s winning?

The Indian stock market witnessed a sharp downturn last month, prompting investors to gauge what’s next for the market. Amid all the expectations, D-Street experts Shankar Sharma, founder of GQuant Investec, and Samir Arora, founder of Helios Capital engaged in a debate to determine whether the Indian stock market will sustain its bullish run or become bearish.

Shankar Sharma, predominantly known for his bullish stance, argued with Samir Arora recognised for his bullish views at the Moneycontrol Global Wealth Summit 2025.

According to Sharma, an Indian bull can run for five years, whereas bulls in America can run for 10 years.

“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 trouble. While a young bull will jump over the trouble,” Sharma said.

A tired bull tries to buckle up if anything significant happens in the market. “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,” he added.

Replying to Sharma, Arora said, “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.”

He further mentioned his definition of 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.”

However, as per Sharma India is the real bear market. He believes that the selloff in the Indian stock market is not due to the globalised bear market.

“China is doing well. Obviously Europe is doing phenomenally well. Toh India mein hi hai ( bear market is only in India)”, he said.

According to Sharma, every asset class, whether traded or non-traded, has a finite amount of reserves in terms of returns. Specifically referring to small-cap funds, Sharma mentioned that the market had given nearly 14-15 per cent returns in the last 25-30 years, but now the returns have reduced to 10-11% due to nominal GDP growth. These returns were lower during the bear market from 2018 to 2020. During the pandemic, the market shot up, and now the market has exhausted its reserves, providing lower returns.

Arora emphasised that instead of looking at the fall, the focus must be on the time period, which may coincide with Donald Trump’s policies, earnings of companies, etc. If the market recovers in the next 8-9 months will be considered as a bull run. However, even he believed that there would be no V-shape recovery which will depend on government policies.

What’s next for the Indian stock market?

While speaking on the outlook for 2025, Samir Arora claimed that the market would bottom out at 5-7 per cent or even 10 per cent in the next one or two months. According to Shankar Sharma, the Nifty 50 would not see any highs in 2025. There would be next to zero returns from the September 2024 highs for the coming four to five years.