| Wednesday, 07 January 2026 |
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Good morning [%first_name |Dear Reader%],
Siddhartha Bhaiya was not one to mince words. In December, in his last interaction with the media, Bhaiya offered this sharp take during a panel discussion (edited excerpts):
“We are in a bubble of epic proportions.
Excluding that [some big PSU stocks], Nifty PE [price-to-earnings ratio] is more than 40. In mid-caps and in small-caps, PE multiples are in excess of 50.
What happens in a 50PE environment? The promoter comes and sells.
I have said this a lot in private, I am going to say this in public. It is not SIP. It is SWT – systematic wealth transfer from India’s middle class to the rich. The SIP amount has been matched with promoter offloading.
What I am seeing is not a healthy bull market, not a healthy capital market.
Everybody talks about asset allocation. When a bull market comes or a bear market comes, your asset allocation is thrown out of the window.
All I want to say is: Be careful. Don’t listen to narratives. Go back and look at your portfolio. What is the PE multiple of stocks in your portfolio?”
Bhaiya had added laughingly, “I have been warned by my team to control my emotions today.”
Thankfully, Bhaiya didn’t control his words, even if he restrained his emotions. He said what he saw, having put his money where his mouth was. An outlier in a market filled with consensus sticklers, conformists, and crowd pleasers.
His untimely passing on 31 December 2025, at the age of 49, is a big loss not just for his loved ones and investors, but for the Indian stock market as well. A rare species—a vital one in the market ecosystem—has shrunk further.
As managing director and chief investment officer of Aequitas Investments, a boutique portfolio management services (PMS) firm, Bhaiya was a straight-talking contrarian. Kotak Institutional Equities’ Sanjeev Prasad, who debunked the mutual fund hype in an interview with The Ken in September, is among the very few in this small group. So is ICICI Prudential MF’s S Naren. They are, however, just a handful.
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