The Cult of Investing or Investing in a Cult?

Vice-chairman and Joint Managing Director, First Global
 

- Shankar Sharma

Something has changed in the world of investing, as we know it. Fundamentals no longer matter. Only eternal and infinite promises matter. Numbers don’t matter. Only the promise of numbers matters. Results don’t matter. Just an attempt at results matters.

I must confess I am lost at this new model of investing that has seized India over the past couple of years. The current government was voted in on the pretty much the same basis on which every new government since 2008 has been voted in: the guys occupying the seat have let you down. Have sold you to Muslims/migrants/refugees/Hispanics/minorities in general/foreign powers; these guys have made your country that was once a superpower, a nation in decline; I have a secret sauce that will fix everything; Vote me in. So everybody from Tsipras to Modi to Trump took out their crayons, too out kindergarten playbooks, drew easy, large drawings of dark clouds, ogres with teeth, devouring small citizens, while stuffing wads of cash in their dungarees. Flip the page, and you got a picture of the sun out, grass green, factories going full swing, and all the above-mentioned “enemies” safely banished to far lands.

In this sort of situation, commonsense investment questions are considered heretical – how will “God” revive the capex cycle? What is the actual data saying? How much time should be given before somebody starts showing even the beginnings of delivery?

Naah…all these are very arcane questions. All questions are met with a standard “Gotta give it time”.

Sure. No problems with that. That’s the problem of voters. As a character said in “Wall Street”: “You bought it. Now you own it.”