GURU SPEAK - MR RAMESH DAMANI

Some Excerpts of interview of Mr. Ramesh Damani, one of the top investors of our country as published in rediff.com on May 06.

This is a beautiful interview and a must read as it has universal truths and pearls of wisdom.

In your experience, what has been the most interesting bull and bear phases in the world's market?
A: All asset classes at all times are in a bull market or bear market. So we've had bull markets in gold, in silver, in US stocks, in Japanese stock. In 1964, Japan experienced a bull market, after they hosted the Tokyo Olympics, which lasted for 25 years up to 1989. This took the Japanese index from a base of 1,000 to 14,000.
The principle here is, that the longer the bull market, the worst the bear market that follows. In 1989, one Japanese company Nippon Telephone & Telegraph was worth the entire the German stock market. So the fall we had is there still, the Nikkei is still at 10,000
The Nasdaq having hit 5,000, was I think a once in a lifetime bubble, we are probably not going to get back to 5,000 in the next five years. So the stronger the bull market, the longer the period you have to pay in the bear market. Our own market in 1992 topped at 4500, it did not decisively cross that level until the year 2002-03, so it took a period of 12 years for the market to cross the 1992 peak of 4500 on the Sensex.