This is a fantastic headline to catch people’s attention, that is all.

I have no clue whether the market will go up, go down, remain sideways,….NO CLUE at all. I mean it, really.

I was in a bank class when the index had reached 10,000 (year 2008 I think?).

One of the kids asked me ‘How long will it take for the market to touch 21000 again?’ Interesting question, I said. It took about 10 years for the equity market to regain Harshad Mehta’s peak – i.e. 1992 to 2002 for the market to decisively break the previous high.

I think after that they stopped troubling me – they had to learn a lot if the client stumped them with such accurate information! But, lekin, kintu, parantu, Alas!

As is fashionable and necessary there is a discussion on a leading channel about how the market will behave. Of course to quote Taleb “Sensible sound bytes is an oxymoron”.

So please listen to all the noise and come to your own conclusion. There is S who is predicting that the market might see 10,500 (when he says market can fall 50% from its previous top, I guess this is what he means), says we are in a bear market.

He says the bear market can last 2-3 years.

Then there is B who says market the market is in a correction mode – part of a bull market and this phase can last 12-18 months. Frankly all these experts are guessing – and they are looking into a teleprompter or a tv camera not a crystal ball.

Getting the market right means –

1.getting the direction right (from 26k, the market will GO DOWN), or that the market will go up (say 50k)

2.say by how much (say specifically, it will go to 14,000, or 50,000 – as your stand is),

3. how long it will be there (time that it will spend at say 14k or at 50k), and by implication

4. when will it start going up from 14k or down from 50k.

AND HAVE THE CONVICTION TO STAND BY IT.

Like John Templeton, I also do not know anybody who knows anybody who can get all the factors correct, all the time, every time.

So stop listening to sure fire timing success stories – it requires too much discipline to be successful with Technical skills.

FAR, FAR, FAR, more importantly you need not know what the market will do going forward on a  day to day basis. That is useless information, with which you can do nothing.

Do not underestimate the power of reading balance sheets, understanding asset allocation and investing regularly. It is damn powerful.