‘Food, lipstick apps for 500x PE’: Shankar Sharma compares India's equity markets with Iran’s tech push

Shankar Sharma, founder of GQuant Investech, said that India may require a prolonged bear market lasting five to ten years to achieve real, sustainable growth. Shankar Sharma commented on a social media platform at a time when India's equity markets have seen strong participation and a surge in startup funding for consumer-focused digital businesses.

Shankar Sharma wrote on X, " Looking at the remarkable success of Iran's tech in missiles, drones, infrared tracking etc, I am convinced it's because they don't have a stock market. Their engineers build real products instead of food & lipstick apps for 500x PE.

India's real teji will start when India has a 5-10 year bear market, and people go back to building real businesses instead of the fluff that gets billions of dollars of market cap these days."

Sharma also drew a comparison between India’s startup ecosystem and countries that have focused technology and engineering. Referring to Iran’s progress in areas such as missile systems, drones and infrared tracking technology, he said the absence of a large stock market culture may have pushed more engineers and talent towards building tangible products rather than consumer apps.

According to Sharma, bull markets often attract capital into what he describes as “fluff", businesses with high valuations but limited long-term economic value, including companies that command very high price-to-earnings multiples despite uncertain profitability.

He further suggested that India’s “real teji” or bull run, would begin only after a cleansing phase, adding that a prolonged downturn could push talent away from speculative ventures and towards manufacturing, engineering, research and deep-tech sectors such as semiconductors, defence technology, electronics and industrial innovation.

*With Agency Inputs